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Riffa Views International School opened its doors on Thursday evening to four of the world's sporting greats in a fascinating evening of question and answer. Facing a grilling from Iain Carter of BBC Radio 5 Live were Colin Montgomerie from the world of golf, Olympics rowing hero Sir Steve Redgrave, cricketing legend Kapil Dev and tennis superstar Boris Becker - all visiting Bahrain to play in the Riffa Views Invitational event.
The four sporting legends were welcomed to the school by the principal, Bruce McWilliams, who paid tribute to them as sporting role models and encouraged his young charges to learn from their years of hard work, practice and dedication.
In the hour or so of lively interchange that followed, the audience of approximately 200 people were treated to some real insights into the commitment that each of the four stars had showed in getting to the top of their respective sports; there were great lessons that they had learnt along the way and were able to share with the audience, together with some very amusing anecdotes.
Monty was adamant that second place is the worst place to finish in any tournament - so close, but not close enough; a feeling that was shared by all members of the panel, proving themselves to be the ultimate competitors who viewed winning and being No. 1 as major success factors.
Kapil and Boris shared experiences from their school days. Boris won Wimbledon at the age of 17, yet still had to go back to school and convince his principal that he really could make a living as a tennis player!
Kapil was not a great student but knew that his heart really lay in the world of sport, and in particular with cricket - he remembered rushing home to eat, get changed and get back on time for cricket practice - but apparently was not quite as timely with his lessons! He also recounted stories of one of the current Indian cricketing greats, Sachin Tendulkar, having to take his study books on tour with him as he broke into the Indian Test side at a very young age.
Sir Steve, meanwhile, faced a very topical question from one of the school's students who wanted to know about his views on performance enhancing drugs. Commenting that it was a very good subject to raise, Sir Steve was very clear in his opposition to any such practice and expressed his view that the penalty for getting caught had to be sufficient to act as a real deterrent. But at the end of the day, the main person being 'cheated' was the drug taker.
The evening was rounded off by some of the children from Riffa Views International School presenting each of the stars with an RVIS cap as a memento.
