The 2019 FINA World Aquatics Championships provided a cool relief to DTM 6th batch students from the humid month of July in Gwangju, Korea.
Every year Dream Together Master students grab the opportunity to experience a mega sport event as a team project in lieu of the intensive studies back in Seoul National University.
The 6th batch students spent 17 days volunteering at the event while conducting research on spectator and athlete satisfaction, volunteer management, experience of officials, and the efficacy of team attaches.
This experience gave students a glimpse into the future of what they should expect as future sports administrators and what it takes to organize a phenomenal championship that they witnessed unfold before their eyes.
The sixteen-day event brought together 191 countries each competing for supremacy at the global showpiece. The biennial championships brought together Olympic and World champions in seven disciplines across five venues.
It was a hands-on experience from what they had been learning in the classroom over the past months and a moment to savor. I mean who wouldn’t wish to come up close with an Olympic champions let alone feel the atmosphere of a fully packed Nambu Municipal University Aquatics Center as USA’s swimming champion Caeleb Dressel shattered Michael Phelps’s record in the 100m butterfly that had stood for a decade!
Students later had a chance to present their research findings and provide recommendations to improve mega sport events in front of DTM professors and members of the FINA World Championships Gwangju 2019 Organizing Committee.
Contribution by 6th Batch Derrick Kilian Ntege
