Chapter VII: Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride. JFK.
Singapore is a great city; there is so much to say about it!
But I’m not here only to visit Singapore and the neighboring countries. I’m here to work as well! I’m here to work in a company. Don’t forget that this “little” city of 5 million citizens is the 4th biggest financial HUB in the WORLD
behind London, New York and Hong-Kong. (Source: Global Financial Centre.).
Singapore is one of the best places to learn and improve your business knowledge. The Singaporean Government has focused since the beginning on a financial structure and company growing to boost the economy.
As the official description of the Marina Bay says, Singapore wants to be “Where people exchange ideas and improve their business”.
But over the last few years, the government has expressed a new goal. After developing the Financial system, they are now interested in the development of leisure (as we see in Chapter V with Sentosa etc…) and in sports.
Today Singaporeans are not all sports addicts, they haven’t got a strong national team and the results
of their participations to world competitions are not so brilliant. But the new policy of the government may change this in the next few years.
Indeed, the new policy regarding sports in Singapore intends to increase the importance of sports in the daily life of Singaporean people.
Good news when you are working in a “Sports Company” which holds major sports event and wants to grow!
Today the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) is in charge to gather every Singaporean around sports, because they think that “Sports help define a nation's identity. Sports bring people together in ways that go beyond race, culture, gender or socio-economic status.”
I join you a video declaration of the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Chan Chun Sing, speaking about the new political objective to "Ride the growth of Asia-pacific sport market".
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By working in this field, MetaSport is contributing to this target, which is gathering everyone around a common passion and pleasure.
By the way, MetaSport organizes and participates in more than 10 major sports events each year.
Here is a quick list of our events:
- Metasport Sprint Series Aquathlon
- Metasport Sprint Series Triathlon
- Vietnam Triathlon
- Tour de Bintan
- MetaMan…
Note that I haven’t mentioned all of them and I would like to develop one of them because I’ve taken part in their organization and in their management.
- The Cyclist Tour de Bintan.
Tour de Bintan is an event on 5 days ( 2 days of preparation, 1 day of “pre-race”, 2 days of race) held at the end of year, between mid- September/November on Bintan Island in Indonesia.
The race is divided into 3 steps:
- The first one is ~150Km around the Island.
- The second one is a 70Km race along the coast.
- Finally, the last one with its 35Kms is a giant sprint.
Each year the event gathers more and more cyclists. This year it has registered more than 800 participants, plus many people coming to see the race.
It’s a very big challenge to be sure that everything will be going well when you know that there are so many people attending the event!
5 intensive days, with a lot of pressure !
Let me explain to you how it works in 3 steps:
1st: When you arrive on the spot (2 days before the participants), all the stuff must be already here. For
this , one week before the beginning of the event, you need to be sure that all the big stuff has arrived safely on destination to be set up in time.
2nd: Numerous meetings, an excellent organization, endurance and resistance to stress, are the key words. The team is divided into different categories. Everyone is given a special mission and must complete it perfectly. Everyone is complementary and must be ready to help if necessary.
Before the beginning of the event, the “Final Meeting” gathers the whole manager staff of the event. The goal of this meeting is to make sure that everything is ready to welcome and host all the participants, fix the last problems and be certain that we can “officially launch the event”. By the way, after this meeting, it will be your turn to report...
3rd: The day of the cycling race: You need to manage and lead your team to be sure that everything is going well, be ready to face any unexpected things and answer the participants’ questions about the geographic organization and the schedule of the event.
During these 5 days, you wake up everyday at 4:30am, have your breakfast at 5am and be ready to go at least 
at 6:30. And what about the evening? You can’t go to bed before 10pm!
But even if the schedule was quite hard, participating in the organization of the Tour de Bintan has been a very rewarding and fulfilling experience and I will remember it as a great moment.
It has helped me learn more on how to manage a team of 7 people in “real conditions” under a burning sun. I’ve loved it.
And at the end of the event, I won the award of the best intern and a fresh beer… well deserved!
The Singapoverblog©
by Pierre BRETAUDEAU