At the recent ‘International Sports Day’, TU Delft’s team of international MSc students competed against international students from other Dutch universities. The TU team was disappointed that they finished in second place and also weren’t allowed to keep their team T-shirts.
‘International Sports Day’ once again proved to be a great opportunity for TU Delft’s international students to meet and compete against students from other Dutch universities. For the last two years the event was held at TU Delft, but this year Erasmus University in Rotterdam played host.
Eight teams from various Dutch universities and institutes competed at this year’s event. TU Delft had approximately 56 players competing in all the eight different sporting events: indoor soccer, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, running, darts and chess. A small but hearty band of supporters were also on hand to cheer the TU Delft team on to victory throughout the day.
With last year’s TU Delft team just narrowly missing being crowned the overall champions, there was understandably great optimism among the TU team members heading into this year’s event: would this be the year that the TU Delft team won the overall championship for the first time? Sadly, it wasn’t to be. Despite finishing in the top three positions in all individual events, the TU Delft team could only manage a second place finish . IHE Delft was once again the champions, as they were last year as well.
The TU team did however manage to bring home several trophies, including: first prize in volleyball, darts and badminton; second prize in chess, basketball and table tennis; and third prize for soccer and running events.
“Overall the event was spectacular. It was great to spend a day with a multilingual, multicultural group of people,” said TU darts team captain, Yonas Tesfay Gebrekiros, who is from Ethiopia and studies electrical power engineering.
Gebrekiros had only good things to say about the planning of the event, but he did reserve some criticism for the way the TU Delft team was treated: “Everybody on the team wanted to have at least something for the memory of having been on the TU Delft international sports team,” Gebrekiros explains. “We didn’t ask for anything specifically, but we were all very surprised and disappointed when we were asked to return the TU team T-shirts we were given to wear during the event.” Gebrekiros’ opinion was also shared by the other team members, who were all forced to return their sweaty TU Delft T-shirts.
David Martinez, from Mexico and an MSc student in sustainable energy technology, participated in the relay races: “In terms of fun it was perfect, with a lot of people watching the competition. But in terms of the actual running it was very bad: we ran around a tennis court instead of a track, which was very disappointing.”
Veera Raghavan, from India, who studies chemical engineering, competed in the chess tournament. “The day was fun and I enjoyed the opportunity to interact with international students from other universities. But the individual events like chess could have been handled better with a predefined format. I would have been nice if the person running the chess event was actually familiar with the game and the rules.”
At the end of the 2008 International Sports Day, some questions remained for next year: despite the improvements made over the years, why is the TU Delft team unable to finish higher than second place? Why, compared to the other universities, were there so few supporters from TU Delft there to cheer our team on? And finally, why did the TU’s Sports Centre event organisers not allow the TU team members to at least keep their team T-shirts?
Tune in next year for the answers. But in the meantime, beware of any sweaty T-shirts for sale at TU Delft’s Sports Centre.
TU Delft’s International Sports Day team
‘International Sports Day’ once again proved to be a great opportunity for TU Delft’s international students to meet and compete against students from other Dutch universities. For the last two years the event was held at TU Delft, but this year Erasmus University in Rotterdam played host.
Eight teams from various Dutch universities and institutes competed at this year’s event. TU Delft had approximately 56 players competing in all the eight different sporting events: indoor soccer, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, running, darts and chess. A small but hearty band of supporters were also on hand to cheer the TU Delft team on to victory throughout the day.
With last year’s TU Delft team just narrowly missing being crowned the overall champions, there was understandably great optimism among the TU team members heading into this year’s event: would this be the year that the TU Delft team won the overall championship for the first time? Sadly, it wasn’t to be. Despite finishing in the top three positions in all individual events, the TU Delft team could only manage a second place finish . IHE Delft was once again the champions, as they were last year as well.
The TU team did however manage to bring home several trophies, including: first prize in volleyball, darts and badminton; second prize in chess, basketball and table tennis; and third prize for soccer and running events.
“Overall the event was spectacular. It was great to spend a day with a multilingual, multicultural group of people,” said TU darts team captain, Yonas Tesfay Gebrekiros, who is from Ethiopia and studies electrical power engineering.
Gebrekiros had only good things to say about the planning of the event, but he did reserve some criticism for the way the TU Delft team was treated: “Everybody on the team wanted to have at least something for the memory of having been on the TU Delft international sports team,” Gebrekiros explains. “We didn’t ask for anything specifically, but we were all very surprised and disappointed when we were asked to return the TU team T-shirts we were given to wear during the event.” Gebrekiros’ opinion was also shared by the other team members, who were all forced to return their sweaty TU Delft T-shirts.
David Martinez, from Mexico and an MSc student in sustainable energy technology, participated in the relay races: “In terms of fun it was perfect, with a lot of people watching the competition. But in terms of the actual running it was very bad: we ran around a tennis court instead of a track, which was very disappointing.”
Veera Raghavan, from India, who studies chemical engineering, competed in the chess tournament. “The day was fun and I enjoyed the opportunity to interact with international students from other universities. But the individual events like chess could have been handled better with a predefined format. I would have been nice if the person running the chess event was actually familiar with the game and the rules.”
At the end of the 2008 International Sports Day, some questions remained for next year: despite the improvements made over the years, why is the TU Delft team unable to finish higher than second place? Why, compared to the other universities, were there so few supporters from TU Delft there to cheer our team on? And finally, why did the TU’s Sports Centre event organisers not allow the TU team members to at least keep their team T-shirts?
Tune in next year for the answers. But in the meantime, beware of any sweaty T-shirts for sale at TU Delft’s Sports Centre.
TU Delft’s International Sports Day team
Comments are closed.