The brains of UCFB Wembley student Oliwia Neunert and the benefit of the institutions regular guest speaker series made sure her team stormed to victory in the recent International Management Games in Groningen, Netherlands.
Oliwia, in the second year of her BA (Hons) Sports Business & Sports Law degree, joined fellow UCFB students in a crowd of over 300 participants at the event, which saw the students mixed up and put into 40 different teams at the event in April.
The International Management Games is a form of simulation activity that places students in different sport and event management scenarios and challenges. Over the course of the week, teams were randomly formed in order to mix students from different institutions, with the teams having to undertake a range of tasks that tested and improved their writing, reporting, creative and organisational skills; all within an international setting.
In the final challenge, teams were asked to debate whether death is acceptable at mass sporting events, with the theme being the Great North Run.
Using law she has learnt at UCFB, Oliwia successfully debated it wasn’t acceptable for there to be death at such events, and that organisers have a duty of care to participants.
Oliwia’s skills in successfully debating the topic were also in thanks to regular guest speaker Brendan Foster – the founder of the Great North Run and an Olympic 10,000 metre medallist.
UCFB students have regular access to guest speakers during their degree courses where they learn more about the sport industry and make contacts. Other speakers in the past have included Burnley footballer Joey Barton and broadcaster Gabby Logan.
UCFB Sport Management Lecturer Desislava Goranova said: “Once again we were able to prove how well tailored our degrees are to a number of different areas and how well they transfer in different management and practical areas. The impression from our students was that they felt very well prepared for the Games because the topics covered were very relevant to their various degrees and the nature of the tasks they had to do was something they were familiar with, because they are imbedded in their programmes. With other students the task was to get the task right, but for our students the challenge was to make the task even better.”
