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2020 hasn’t exactly gone to plan in what has been a truly crazy year for the sports industry that has seen events being cancelled the world over. Despite this, during September 2020, OC Sport successfully managed to host two events in two countries, demonstrating the company’s resilience and ability to adapt.
Following the success of La Solitaire du Figaro single-handed sailing race in France at the start of September, the last weekend of the month saw 153 teams and just over 1,000 competitors come together for the second edition of Run Mate. And despite the cold temperatures, strong winds and driving rain, there was a festival atmosphere at the start line on Saturday morning.
This mass participation event is a real test of endurance. Teams made up of 2 - 9 runners complete a non-stop 210km loop around Lake Geneva during the day and night. The route is split into 29 sections of between 3.5km and 12.7km, with one person at a time running from each team whilst their team-mates follow and provide support from a car or minibus.
To get the teams to the start line was a feat of organisational skill given the need to manage two different country administrations (France and Switzerland) and implement their respective Covid-19 health and safety measures. Hats off to the OC Sport team for making it happen.
Alongside the OC Sport team at the race village in Pully, near Lausanne, were their sustainability advisors Blueshift. As at La Solitaire du Figaro, Blueshift were on site to watch the race and collect data as part of the ongoing drive to create a more sustainable and responsible OC Sport business that was initiated earlier in 2020.
For this year’s edition of Run Mate, sustainability was a key consideration for the organising team and this desire to create a clean green race was passed on to the competitors. At registration, team captains were asked to sign a plastic pledge which urged all participants to respect the environment and keep plastic use to a minimum. There was also an in-race competition to see which team could collect the most cigarette butts, with the winning team collected a whopping 1.2kg of them.
Run Mate is another steppingstone on the journey towards a more sustainable future. We are excited about the changes that we are implementing and are looking forward to 2021 with positivity. Follow OC Sport on LinkedIn to see what’s in store next as we continue to re-think sport.
Blog thanks to James Dominey, Blueshift Solutions.
