MBA Students Fight For Glory At Rio Olympics

Pursuit of excellence will be a common trait of both Olympians and MBA students. That’s how a Libyan Marathon runner from Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business will be at Olympics 2016 while Erasmus University, Rotterdam will have five students competing for honours.

A students’ team from George Washington University School of Business is also heading to Rio de Janeiro, not to compete, but collect data on all aspects of Sports Management at the Games.

Mohamed Hrezi (Full-Time MBA ‘18) at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business is representing Libya in the Olympic marathon as the country’s sole runner in all track and field events.

Born and raised in Connecticut, Hrezi’s parents, migrants from Libya to the United States, had raised him and his brother as dual citizens. His parents have since then moved back to Libya. On being invited by Libya to join the national athletic team, he was hesitant at first as he would have to join the team in training in Kenya and Morocco. However, he got an exemption for training in the US.

Erasmus University’s participants at the Olympics are hockey players Seve van Ass, Marloes Keetels (both Business Administration) and Larissa Meijer (Healthcare Management), track cyclist Joost van der Burg (Fiscal Economics) and horse rider Merel Blom (Dutch and Fiscal Law). It also has alumni, rowers Maaike Head and Mitchel Steenman.

Meanwhile, Lisa Delpy Neirotti, Associate Professor of Sport Management at George Washington University School of Business would lead a 27-member students’ team to collect data on space utilization in all the Olympic venues, including: seats, parking lots, and security portals, as well as study spectator behaviour and motivation.

The information is to be used by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other organizing committees for future Olympic Games and local tourism organizations in order to better understand venue requirements, what Olympic spectators’ interests and how they spend their money.

For the students, it provides an opportunity to gain experience in the sports management field. Apart from conducting research, they also have to write term papers and study issues like transportation, media, marketing, event security and the ceremonies.

They will also have the opportunity to hear from various speakers, including members of the organizing committee as well as athletes, and meet Olympic and local government officials.

Meanwhile, a three-time Olympics Table Tennis participant from Australia, currently pursuing part time MBA at Melbourne Business School has opted for pursuing work and studies than sports for the moment.

William Henzell had represented Australia in Table Tennis at three Olympic Games (Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012) and won a silver medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

He is at present a part-time MBA student while working at Slater and Gordon as an Analytics and Reporting Manager.

In an interview published in the web page of Melbourne Business School (MBS), Henzell says the biggest difference he finds in the changeover to the professional world is the importance of building up a great team with complementary skills. Instead of concentrating only on self-motivation, more efforts have to be made towards motivating the team to achieve the set goals.

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On balancing sports, work and studies, he says he retired from playing about a year ago. “I felt it was better to focus doing two things well rather than doing three things poorly.

“So the MBA has certainly helped me prioritise and make decisions about where to invest time. I did make a brief comeback for the MBS – AGSM Cup in June and, despite being very rusty, was able to help the team to get the Cup back,” he says.

About the MBA program, Henzell says he would be half way through at the end of this term. It is very challenging to balance work, the MBA and personal life. “I’m learning a lot and am in a fortunate position to have the opportunity to apply many of the learnings at work straight away,” he adds. (Image Courtesy: en.wikipedia.org)