First and foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to thank and show my appreciation for the LIS Sport Department, as well as everyone who helped to organize or coach any GISST team. It has been a great pleasure being part of the LIS athletic community.
Personally, I had the best time and some of my fondest memories come from being an athlete at LIS. I began training and competing in various sports in second grade, with the LIS hort-football club, from which point on wards I went on to join the LIS Lions as I went into secondary school and have since competed in cross-country, football, volleyball and track and field GISST tournaments. The reason as to why I believe that this time has created some of my favourite memories at LIS is the amazing spirit and team mentality that our athletes embody. When I went to trainings and tournaments, I was going for the joy of it.
That being said, I want to highlight the fact that we managed to achieve some astounding results in the last few years. If I am not mistaken, we finished third in 2018/19 and second in 2019/20, impressive results considering LIS is one of the smaller International Schools in Germany (a fact that bodes well for our athletes and sporting department). I believe that our lion hearted team spirit and excellent performances are by no means coincidental.
I believe the perfect example for what I have been saying is the varsity boys volleyball GISST in 2019. It was not only a hilarious trip in itself (you are going to have to ask Ms Sacca, Mr Reinhardt or the volleyball players for details :)) but we also performed exceptionally well by getting a bronze medal after losing key players to injury and going into the tournament with some inexperienced players, myself included.
Apart from competing and the great athletic environment, sports at LIS allowed me to meet many like-minded athletes. Thanks to GISST tournaments, I have met many amazing people that were tough competition on the field but often turned into friends beyond the sporting ground.
Looking back, I could not have wished for a better place to practice sports and can only recommend joining any GISST team you can.
Here is to one last thank you to everyone involved, it really has been a pleasure.
Sam Hillyer was a student at LIS since 2014. He graduated with his IB diploma last year and was awarded the CAS (Creativity Action Service) award.