Annually, the KDI School welcomes the summer season by holding a sports day, bringing students, staff members and professors together for a whole day of friendly competition, camaraderie, and excitement. This year, the much-anticipated event was held on May 22 at the Training Institute of the Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation (KOBACO) in Yangpyeonggu, Gyeonggi Province.

Although the number of participants was less than last year’s, at only 115, no one could claim that it was less fun. All together, 16 staff members and 92 students sweated out the day’s events. Seven professors, including Professor Tae-Jong Kim, Professor Hun-Joo Park, Professor Kun-Ho Lee, Professor Jin Park, Professor Young-Ki Lee, Professor Hann Earl Kim and Professor Yuri Mansury, took valuable time away from their scholarly work to join in the fun.

To the delight of everyone, the weather was at its best. To get the day started, the crowd was pre-divided into four teams: the dark blue team, composed of Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) students; the sky blue team, composed of MPP-KOICA students; the orange team, composed of all Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) students; and the yellow team, composed of 14 Global Leader Program (GLP) students and 16 staff members.

The orange team was off to a good early start by artfully winning the dodge ball game, giving everyone the impression that they were going to rule the day. But things made a stunning turnaround when the dark blue team won the much-awaited soccer game against the MBA team. It was a hardearned win for a team which had barely rested for ten minutes before the final face-off. Until the last few minutes of the game, time dragged on with neither team scoring a goal. The orange team deserved credits for successfully thwarting the dark blue team’s every attempt to score a goal. Then, just a few minutes after half-time, the goal came when Michal Bartusek, following a valiant cutting chip from teammate Bence Tamassy, gave the ball an expert kick worth his every salt and it sailed way past the

opponent’s goalkeeper.

Shortly after that, on their marks, eight participants for each team competed in the running relay contest. Female participants were the first ones to run. The audience was astonished when Ms. Hye-Jung Yang of the yellow team sprinted off as soon as the signal was given, leaving the others lagging far behind. But then, the dark blue team’s player Sung Joon Park, with his natural speed and agility, overtook the other runners. From then on events took a sudden turn, with dark blue team runners conquering the running field and recording two straight wins for the day.

To determine to whom the top honors would go, each team had to put its muscles into a tug-of-war contest. For one rare moment there, everyone - students, staff members, and professors - poured out sweat to win this game of pure physical strength. In the end, it boiled down to a match between the orange team and the dark blue team once again. All in unison, the orange team’s members pulled, panted and did everything in their power to stay on their ground, but the dark blue team overpowered them anew.

With three major wins during the day, the dark blue team swept the title of this year’s sports day champion. The competition further ended with a tie between the sky blue team and orange team for the second prize and third prize honors going to the yellow team. Gift certificates were also given away to lucky participants.

At the end of the day, everyone was made witness to a different kind of winning. Surely, winning the title comes second only to winning new friends and enjoying camaraderie that comes from doing something fun and wacky, like sports, for a change!

By Wendy N. MONTEALTO (MPP 2009, Philippines)