There are seven of them, they combine high-level sport and corporate work and they are sponsored by Veolia. These are our "Talents & Champions". From today, you can discover them, share their commitments and achievements, and follow the 2024 sporting adventure.
Supporting our champions for 2024
"Talents & Champions" is a sponsorship programme that supports and integrates high-level sportsmen and women to enable them to reconcile sporting excellence with a career in business. The scheme promotes respect for diversity, equal opportunities and the fight against discrimination.
Focus on Caroline Jouisse, open water swimmer, who tells us about her journey:
What is your discipline and how do you practise it?
I do open water swimming, which has been an Olympic discipline since 2008, and train in the pool in Fontainebleau. The competitions take place at sea, in lakes, rivers or artificial pools (as in Abu Dhabi or Doha) over fixed distances of 5, 10, 25 km or more. And the time depends on the race of course.
Can you give us an example of a time and route?
Of course. At the start of the year, for example, I swam from the island of Capri to Naples, 36 km in almost 7 hours. For 10 km, it can take 2 hours or 2 hours and 20 minutes if there are many waves.
Can you tell us about your motivations and commitments as a sportswoman?
Like all sports, swimming requires a very high level of personal commitment. If I stop swimming for 36 hours, I lose my sense of self-possession and my performance suffers. So it's a constant effort and commitment. Also, practising my sport has brought me face to face with realities that have made a deep impression on me. In Macedonia, for example, I saw large amounts of waste at the bottom of a lake with very clear water. I try to do the right thing to preserve this essential natural environment. Nowadays, during races, I avoid throwing my food wrappers into the water.
Why did you choose Veolia?
Water is the element in which I move every day, so it was only natural that I turned to this Group when I arrived in France. I was offered a permanent contract that was in keeping with my aspirations in October 2021 and, most importantly, I was given the opportunity to continue my career as a top-level sportswoman while adjusting my working hours and respecting my recovery time. Today I must say that it is thanks to Veolia, my club in Sarcelles and the French Swimming Federation that I can pursue my dream with the goal of 2024.
My sporting calendar:
- Mid-May 2022: European Open Water Cup in Italy over 10 km.
- 18 June to 3 July: World Championships in Budapest (Hungary), over 10 km and 25 km, with prior training at altitude in Font-Romeu (France)
- 9 and 10 July: World Cup in Paris
- 9 and 10 July: European Championships in Rome (Italy) over 10 km and 25 km
- Then other World Cups and European Cups in Canada, Barcelona and Israel... And after that a stage in the United States.
- July 2023: World Open Water Championships in Fukuoka (Japan) which will determine the athletes selected for 2024. "
Caroline Jouisse
Caroline Jouisse
Caroline Jouisse
Sport, a lever for well-being and health in companies
"Corporate sport, integrated into the Group's Health and Safety Department, is becoming a catalyst for diversity, an accelerator of cohesion, a lever for building team spirit and pride in belonging. At Veolia, our "Veolia Sport & Human" community includes several thousand employees who share their passions and mutually support one another, echoing the Group's values", explains Frédéric Goetz, the Group's Health and Safety Director.
Why "Talents & Champions"?
- The word "Champion", taken from the world of sports, is at the heart of the culture of Veolia, the world leader in ecological transformation; it embodies the collective, with all of its diversity.
- The word "Talent" echoes human resources and, indeed, the HR community.