Globetrotting

Last Sunday, we had the INSEAD-BCG Olympics, a whole day of sports activities on the beach at Sentosa, sponsored by my employer (which also meant that I had to do some work in the organization of the day, but I had a comparably small responsibility).

The day started off with some people doing a run from INSEAD to the venue at Sentosa, a run of ~9 km. Most people, however, went to the island by buses (or later by themselves by taxi). The activities themselves kicked off at about 11:00 am, with competitions between the sections in volleyball and football. Overall, roughly 200 people attended the event: about 50 people for each of the sections of my promotion, and again roughly 50 people for the previous promotion (who are currently in the midst of their job searches and therefore have less time to attend an event like this). Over the course of the day, we also had competitions in dodgeball, tug-of-war, and a swimming relay.

In addition to these “serious” competitions, every section also had a list of “fun” activities to complete in order to earn points and potentially become the overall winner of the Olympics. These fun activities included things like building a pyramid out of section members, taking a picture of ten section members doing a handstand, or ordering all section members by first name and taking a picture of that.

My own responsibility over the day was, in addition to coordinating the buses, to be the referee for the football matches – not a really easy task, especially since over the course of the matches the competitive spirit of the teams began to increase, and I had to take some tough and debatable decisions. However, in the end everything worked out alright.

The day ended with a ceremony in which the winner was named (not my section, unfortunately), followed by a barbeque dinner, and music and dancing on the beach or even in the water.

We left the venue by bus at 10pm, being completely exhausted but also very happy, after a full day of sports and fun. Some pictures follow.