When I arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport, I realized that the MBAT would be a greater challenge than I expected. So far, the pre-organization went smoothly, thanks largely to the support of Hongmin Kim, my co-captain, and the help of the ESMT Marketing Team, represented by Rick Doyle.
But now, things seemed to be harder than I thought. It was 9am. I should arrive at HEC at around 12am, but the campus was three hours away by public transport. I needed to be on time to register our participants and play our first beach volleyball match a couple of hours later. Plus, I was the captain. What kind of message would I be sending as a leader if I were not to arrive on time? Anyway, sport is about challenges, so I just tried to get into that spirit. Plus, the weather was awesome.
After a three-hour odyssey, I finally reached the HEC campus together with 300 students from Cambridge and Oxford. During registration, I found out that many other schools were late too, which made me relieved. Some of my colleagues were already at HEC, while others were soon to come. HEC understood the struggle of schools to arrive on time and was flexible in the first matches, letting us play with mixed teams. Some colleagues would arrive only at the end of the afternoon, enough soon to attend the first evening party.
In the opening ceremony, crowds from LBS and IE shouted when their mascot and captain came up on stage to bring the school flag. We were the third to present. Even coming with only 19 participants (15 MBAs and 4 Masters in Management students), ESMT was one of the loudest crowds. Carolina Rincon was our mascot: the “beer bear”. Our presentation video showing Berlin sports heroes (from the 1936 Olympics to the 2016 MBAT) entertained the crowd. Carolina gave me the mascot uniform and I dressed it up for a pie-eating contest among mascots. Picture a bunch of dudes dressing as animals trying to eat a whole pie as fast as possible. We argued that the man underneath the lion from Cass was not really eating the cake, but simply throwing the pie inside of the mouth in the uniform and he was declassified. Finally, the giraffe of ESADE won the competition with merits. Party continued strong until drinks stop being sold and we had to go back to our hotels at around 2am. It was a good idea. The next day would be a long one.
The second day was the busiest day in the competition, with tournaments happening in almost all the sports. Since we were a smaller team, we only participated in basketball, beach volleyball, chess, kicker (table football), and cross-country. The day was very sunny and we were chilling at the gym area – the stage of most of the sports – waiting for our time to play.
That was our winning day. One of our two beach volleyball teams won all the group matches and a tough quarterfinal match to qualify for the semifinals. The ESMT crowd was so united that our excitement infected our opponents, who jumped in and celebrated with us, even after their defeat. The basketball team won its last group match to get its ticket into the playoffs. The highlight was Patrick El Murr, who used to play on Lebanon’s national team and ended up being selected for the All-Star Team of the Tournament. Last, but not least, one of our kicker teams won the first-ever ESMT medal: silver. Roberto Zincone and Enrique Thayer beat teams from Rotterdam, HEC, Frankfurt, and Oxford to face LBS in the final. Roberto and Enrique were practicing a lot at ESMT’s Kicker table and that proved to be helpful against all the teams. In the final, though, the opponent was way too strong, with a young German prodigy from LBS Masters in Management showing powerful skills to overpower our favorites.
After such a long day, we needed to go back home and take a shower and dress up for the party. But where was the shower? Not working! We called the reception and they blamed us: everybody wanted to take the shower at the same time. We could not wait until the shower would be repaired, so we needed to improvise. Some people asked for water bottles from receptions. Others realized that the shower worked with very hot water, which meant lots of painful shouts coming from the bathroom. The party in the evening proved to be the best with bands from all the schools showing their skills. After the official celebration was over, some of us moved to the after-party at HEC’s MBA Building, with extra drinks and music until 5am.
On the final day, survivors of the tough group matches (and last night’s wild parties) would face the playoffs. We were playing basketball and beach volleyball, but our opponents were way too strong for us. In basketball, we lost in the quarterfinals against IE, and in beach volleyball, we stopped in the semifinals against Oxford, who would soon become champions. In the bronze medal match, we had a tough match against HEC, losing by only two points difference. Nevertheless, the whole team was united and celebrating and we hugged each other, as well as the opponents. Finally, we went to the lake to see our girls running a confusing cross-country competition. Competitors could not find the right path and get lost on their way. One of our runners, Carolina Rincon, found her way after some time and finished the little marathon with merits.
Later in the evening, our small group gathered to celebrate the final evening with our first-ever medals being given to Roberto and Enrique. We were hugging each other and exchanging love messages even without drinking that much alcohol. It was a tough challenge to be the captain of ESMT at the MBAT. But that team made it easy and, moreover, worth the effort.
Before coming, I thought that the MBAT would be the perfect occasion to connect with students from other schools. But what actually happened was different: I created even stronger bonds with my colleagues and – contrary to the captains of those monster crowds from the bigger schools – I knew all my team members by name: Alex, Amir, Aniket, Carolina, Cristina, Christoph, Dylan, Enrique, Florian, Hongmin, Matthias, Nai-Wen, Patrick, Phyllis, Ren, Roberto, Viara and Vladimir. Our partnership evolved into friendship and we will never forget this wonderful time spent together.
