MBAT and Road Trip

May 8-11 saw the 18th MBA Tournament in Paris with 1500 participants from 15 European business schools participating. The tournament, hosted by HEC, includes sports from rugby, football and cricket to sailing, poker and salsa.

Oxford came in overall fourth in the tournament, with notable wins in rugby, sailing, squash, Petanque (how many of you have heard of this? I hadn't, before the MBAT), and poker. We also came in second in ultimate frisbee (which I played), badminton, duathlon relay, and rowing.

All in all it was a fabulous experience. HEC hosted a party each night after the sporting events, so there was a lot of drinking involved (a deliberate ploy?). I drove to Paris with a bunch of friends, and that meant we could avoid the painful 14 hour bus journey endured by all the others. It also meant we could get to the hotel early and check in ahead of the 130 others who descended in one go...the last person to check in had to wait for over an hour to do so.

The highlights of the trip? A great road trip; getting lost in Paris and spending over an hour trying to find our way back (more on Paris roads later); staying up until 6 in the morning before heading off to HEC at 8 for further sporting events; spending the night drinking at a pavement restaurant on Champs Elysees - and by 'spending the night' I mean until 6.30 in the morning; cheering our teams until our throats gave way; playing 3 near-consecutive frisbee games; a fabulous game of cricket where we fielded first-timer Chinese Jenny who turned out to be the star of the game.

I guess I could go on and on...but I'll try and cover individual areas in separate, future posts. For now, here are a few pictures that give some idea of what the trip was like.





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