Though it isn’t a sport enjoyed by everyone, there is no doubt that cross country is a sport, and an under appreciated one at ISB. For IASAS, our school’s team had the fortune of representing our school and defend the notion that cross country, or even running in general, isn’t a “real” sport. “How did they do this?” you may ask yourself, the boys helped cement this sport into ISB by coming in first for IASAS.

Before we dive into the team’s accomplishments, it might help to first understand how cross country works in terms of the point system and how everything is scored. For the 5 kilometer run, they take the place which the runners get when they finish the race, this is then translated into points. This differs for the 3 kilometer run in which they first start the race by having the runner in last place, in this case the 42nd place, start running then five seconds later the 41st place starts to run and so on. As far as the points work, they add up the times of each schools top six runners. In the end, they take the placements of the runners from the 5k race and turn those into points, then they take the added up times of the top six runners of the 3k race and see which placement these would translate to, then finally add up the total points that each school has at the end.

Let’s start with the first race: the 5k. ISB boys got off to a great start by getting first place in the first race of IASAS. They also got second place in this race as well. This great start would prove to aid them later on in the tournament, we’ll explore that later. At the end of this first day of running, ISB’s cross country team found themselves in first place. The next day is when the 3k race took place. With the times all added up, ISB finished in 3rd place. This is where the points get interesting. For ISB they came first in the 5k run and 3rd in the 3k run amounting to 4 points in total. SAS came 3rd in the 5k run and first in the 3k, translating to 4 points.

Finally TAS got second place in both races, which comes out to 4 points. Each of these schools totaled up 4points each. To deal with this they use the tie breaker, which is the 5k race. Due to ISB placing first in the 5 kilometer race, they won first place overall. This number one spot in IASAS, unfortunately wasn’t shared with the girls cross country team. Despite the best efforts from our top female cross country runners, they ended up coming in fifth in the five kilometer run, and sixth in the three kilometer run, sadly ending up in last place overall.

In conclusion, it can be hard to understand everything when it comes to cross country, especially with my explanation, but aside from this, ISB boys placing first has helped prove to other athletes and students alike that cross country is a sport. This has been established by the fact that they won IASAS, further cementing this thought, especially the people who look negatively on running. Congratulations to the ISB boys cross country team and good luck to all future runners.