APAC & Sports Roundup

“Can we swap swim caps?” This old age tradition was a highlight for High School students experiencing sports travel for the first time after the Covid pandemic. Meeting fellow students across the region, not only for rigorous competition, but also for a sense of belonging to a sport or an activity for which students spend months preparing. These swimmers swapped signed swim caps with students from Seoul Foreign School, Chadwick International School, and Brent International School and will cherish them as keepsakes from APAC 2023.

The Asia Pacific Activities Conference (APAC) provides yearly events in which schools across the Asia Pacific region participate and compete in events for sports and the arts. Traditionally, delegations would travel in order to compete but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, APAC had been conducted virtually. With international travel opened up once more, HKIS sent representatives overseas to participate. For the first time in four years, HKIS hosted an APAC activity on campus in April, where the Girls’ Varsity Soccer team welcomed visiting teams to Hong Kong.

2023 has been very successful for HKIS to say the least! HKIS athletes emerged victorious in girls’ and boys’ swimming, boys’ soccer and secured second place in boys’ basketball and girls’ soccer. When asked for a word to describe this APAC season, Andrea Clark, HKIS’s Athletics Director, said, “Rewarding.” According to Clark, even outside of the victorious results, the biggest highlight of APAC 2023 was being able to meet people in person and not through a screen.

Clark continues, “there’s a lot of time in those tournaments and festivals where students get to meet students from other international schools who are passionate about the same thing. So you get all the basketball teams meeting each other, and it happens in band and theater as well, where you get to work closely together with other people who are passionate about those things in a collegial environment."