The Spanish, French, German and Latin students of Lake Catholic High School competed in their annual Language Olympics Tuesday.

They challenged one another in physical, mental and culinary contests in front of a raucous crowd in the school's gym.

The language clubs formed teams that played in volleyball, speedball and dodgeball tournaments. They also demonstrated their mental acumen with vocabulary, translation and cultural contests.

Additionally, the students cooked dishes from the land of their respective languages' origin, which the teachers ranked.

The Language Olympics began in 1988 and have grown more elaborate each year. The students make their own team T-shirts and study hard to win linguistic bragging rights.