With the cancellation of the UTMB race this year, I travelled to Mont Blanc with Trail Running Magazine and ON Running to be part of a unique performance project. Whilst there, I interviewed ON Running's youngest pro athlete, Antoine Charvolin.
ON have been growing rapidly over the past 10 years, part of their growth has seen them invest in performance gear and a whole team of researchers, product specialists, and athletes, that can push their performance projects into the market. The athletes they have worked with for this come from around the world, and the distance running aficionados will be impressed to see that they sponsor Andy Vernon, Chris Thompson, and a whole group of athletes in America managed and coached by Dathan Ritzenhiem.
I was lucky enough to spend a few days with their researchers and performance team when they attempted to run a relay of the UTMB race route, to test out their new gear. I recently shared an insight into this project after interviewing the head of athlete services Kevin Dellion. Kevin was kind enough to give me exclusive access to speak to his young athletes, including Antoine, in the interview shown below.
Antoine told me about his past as a skier and how his journey into elite running was more of an accident than one would think! The 22 year old had only been competing in cross country and did a trail race as a bit of experiment and ended up earning a bib! He went on to win the UTMB Junior race in 2017. We also spoke about how his training and racing had changed throughout 2020 due to the pandemic and lockdowns that were implemented across France. Listen to the interview and get in touch if you would like to hear more!
Thank you to On Running, Kevin Dellion, Antoine Charvolin, Aspire PR, and Trail Running Magazine. This theme continues this week with some original research and another interview!