Seventeen high school school athletic teams converged upon the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) on Friday, September 21 and Saturday, September 22, to face off in WABX to the MAX. The two-day showdown featured tournaments for four activities: baseball, tennis, volleyball, and dance, with teams from Beijing international and local schools, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and even Manila, Philippines.
Tournaments got started on Friday, with a WAB versus the British School of Beijing (BSB) on the baseball diamond. Meanwhile, boys and girls volleyball and tennis teams competed in round-robins and matches that would determine the set-ups for Saturday. The dance groups were tasked with choreographing a dance to a piece of jazz music, which music students would play live during the performance in WAB’s Peace Park on Saturday evening.
The tournament focuses on exchange and community, and students from schools outside of Beijing stayed not in hotels but in homes with WAB families. This is the second year that WAB has hosted WABX to the MAX. WAB organizes the tournament with the goal of developing links with schools that don’t have the same facilities, and, according to WAB Athletics and Activities Director Martin Halpin, to “carry on the goodwill of sportsmanship.”
Photos by Ellis Friedman
