Middle East
Login / Register
Recently, two prestigious educational institutions affiliated with Kukri Sports participated in the annual World School Games Netball Cup, which took place at Loughborough University (another prominent partner of the company).
World School Games Event Series
The World School Games is a series of events each year across a range of different sports, including Netball, Basketball and Swimming. Competitors are drawn from a variety of leading education providers across the world.
Scott Macfarlane – Director at World School Games
“We are thrilled to welcome more than 30 schools from 5 different countries to the World’s #1 University for sport, Loughborough, for the third edition of the World School’s Netball Cup.
The World School Games event series is a global celebration of competition, diversity and friendship where young athletes represent their schools, countries and families with pride, passion and class.”
Find out more about The World School Games
Two Kukri partner schools taking part in the event were Dubai College (DC) and Dubai English Speaking School (DESC), who both understand the benefits the tournament offers its students.
Dubai College Director of Netball Lucia Sdao
“It’s a fantastic competition! we came last year for the first time and actually won in all 3 age groups. It is really beneficial for us to visit another country and play against different opposition styles. After the COVID-19 restrictions ended it was important for the students to visit different locations and experience other sporting cultures.
Whilst some of our students are British, many aren’t and it’s a great experience to bring them over to the UK and visit Loughborough University and experience the fantastic facilities and see the athletes walking around campus.
We have a robust DC Netball programme, which involves early mornings, lunch times, after school training and competitions at weekends, and lots of the girls compete in the Dubai leagues. We also have full on strength and conditioning programmes, ran by our Head of Performance Justin Walsh.
Whilst it is important to win, the main focus of the team is on their performance and how they compete against the other schools taking part, whilst focusing on long-term development.
At DC with have over 300 girls who take part in netball, and our focus is allowing any netballer being the best player they can be.”
DESC Netball Coach Amanda Newton
“Our students are very excited to participate in The World School Games, especially as they don’t get a lot of opportunity to compete against other schools in Dubai. It’s a great opportunity to travel and play in something that is more than a training environment. They are staying together on the university campus, training together, eating together and competing together, which offers an insight into what their lifestyle may be like if they become a professional athlete.
At DESC we appreciate the benefits of competing at this event and it exposes our students to the English way of playing, whilst competing against other international schools. They also get to visit the fantastic facilities that Loughborough has to offer as a leading sports university in the world and see the athletes walking around, it is just a fantastic experience for them all.
Our goals are to put out good performances when we play, we want to win whenever we play, but we just want to build the experience of the players, to develop them further and potentially prepare them for a future life as an athlete.”
Liv Murphy , Head of Performance Support at Loughborough University
“At Loughborough we see the event as a great opportunity for netballers of the future to experience where the Loughborough Lightning team train and play.
We want to showcase the sport and inspire the next generation. At the event the teams met some of our star players who are heading to the World Cup this summer and held the Super League trophy as Lightning are the current champions.
We look forward to welcoming more generations of players to access our world class facilities and inspire them to strive to be the best they can be. Most of all we want people to continue to love the sport.”