The UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion is launch­ing a spon­sor­ship cam­paign to sup­port elite ath­letes at UTC. The goal is to fund sev­er­al schol­ar­ships and pro­vide long-term sup­port for stu­dent-ath­letes pur­su­ing a dual path of excellence.

UTC offers a spe­cial­ized pro­gramme, UTC Sport Élite, which is one of the institution’s four areas of excel­lence, along­side Musique Élite, Entre­pre­neuri­at Élite and Assos Élite. This pro­gramme allows elite ath­letes to pur­sue their engi­neer­ing stud­ies under con­di­tions adapt­ed to their train­ing and com­pe­ti­tion sched­ules. “As ear­ly as the 1970s, Robert Col­com­bet, one of UTC’s found­ing fathers and a pio­neer of inter­col­le­giate sports at the insti­tu­tion, rec­og­nized the val­ue of wel­com­ing and sup­port­ing elite ath­letes in their engi­neer­ing stud­ies. Since then, many cham­pi­ons have stud­ied at UTC, such as Tom Laperche, an off­shore race skip­per and uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate,” notes Arnaud Van­ni­cat­te, direc­tor of the sports depart­ment. “The unique fea­ture of UTC’s inno­v­a­tive edu­ca­tion­al mod­el is that it opti­mal­ly orga­nizes the dual goals of our high-lev­el stu­dent-ath­letes.” For sev­er­al years, the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion has been sup­port­ing stu­dents pur­su­ing paths of excel­lence, whether they are entre­pre­neurs, musi­cians, or ath­letes. This new cam­paign aims to strength­en its sup­port for student-athletes.

An initiative open to alumni and companies

The funds raised will be used to award schol­ar­ships designed to help cov­er expens­es relat­ed to high-lev­el sports: trav­el, train­ing camps, com­pe­ti­tions and ath­let­ic prepa­ra­tion. “The goal is to sup­port our stu­dents’ per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al aspi­ra­tions. The pro­grammes of excel­lence allow them to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pur­sue their engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion and their per­son­al goals, whether in entre­pre­neur­ship, music, or sports. This fundrais­ing cam­paign is aimed at both com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als, and espe­cial­ly at our alum­ni com­mu­ni­ty and stu­dents’ par­ents,” explains Sylvie Lemon­nier-Morel, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion. To serve as the face of this cam­paign, the foun­da­tion has cho­sen Julien Bahain as its patron. A 2011 UTC grad­u­ate in mechan­i­cal sys­tems engi­neer­ing and an Olympic medal­list in row­ing at the 2008 Bei­jing Olympics, he has com­mit­ted to ral­ly­ing the university’s com­mu­ni­ty of for­mer elite ath­letes behind this initiative.

Paul Fortin has his sights set on the Los Angeles Olympic Games

A mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing stu­dent at UTC, Paul Fortin has been fenc­ing since the age of 10 and has a clear ambi­tion: to com­pete in the 2028 Los Ange­les Olympic Games. Last May, he secured his first indi­vid­ual inter­na­tion­al podi­um fin­ish at the Medel­lín Grand Prix in Colom­bia. “I defeat­ed the reign­ing Euro­pean cham­pi­on and lost by a nar­row mar­gin to the Paris 2024 Olympic cham­pi­on in the semi-finals. This result allowed me to break into the world’s top 50,” explains the 23-year-old ath­lete. “At the end of July, I’ll be com­pet­ing in the World Cham­pi­onships in Hong Kong. The Olympic Games are obvi­ous­ly in the back of my mind.” Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion will begin at the end of next sea­son. “Giv­en my progress, my age, and my room for improve­ment, I con­sid­er this a real­is­tic goal.” Although he rarely requests adjust­ments to his class sched­ule, Paul Fortin believes that fundrais­ing could pro­vide valu­able assis­tance in cov­er­ing trav­el expens­es. “I train at INSEP in Vin­cennes (East Paris sub­urbs). I trav­el there twice a week from Com­piègne. Trav­el costs are sig­nif­i­cant. This sup­port seems rea­son­able to me, because when I’m com­pet­ing, I’m also rep­re­sent­ing UTC. How­ev­er, I would nev­er ask the uni­ver­si­ty to fund my sports equipment—that’s more the respon­si­bil­i­ty of my club. Trav­el expens­es, on the oth­er hand, seem like a legit­i­mate expense to me.”

Mazarine Proux: Balancing engineering studies and Elite field hockey

A stu­dent in the core cur­ricu­lum at UTC, 20-year-old Mazarine Proux has been play­ing field hock­ey since she was five. Every week, she makes sev­er­al round trips between Com­piègne and Lille to train with her club. “That’s about four hours of dri­ving each week, plus week­end trips for prac­tices and games. UTC has adjust­ed my sched­ule so that I don’t have class­es on Tues­day evenings or Wednes­day morn­ings. That’s already a sig­nif­i­cant sup­port and a real ben­e­fit of the ‘Path­way to Excel­lence’ pro­gramme,” explains the ath­lete, who plays for the Iris Hock­ey Lam­ber­sart club. An inter­na­tion­al youth cat­e­go­ry, she com­pet­ed in two Euro­pean Cups in the U18 and U21 cat­e­gories. More recent­ly, she took part in a World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign with the French senior team in Chile. Oth­er major events await her, notably the 2026 Nations Cup in New Zealand and the Euro­pean Cup in Salon-de-Provence. “Between petrol and motor­way tolls for my trips to Lille, the expens­es add up quick­ly. I’m lucky to have par­ents who can help me finan­cial­ly. With­out their sup­port, I prob­a­bly wouldn’t have been able to con­tin­ue on this path. Many ath­letes don’t have that option. This fundrais­er can help them con­tin­ue to ful­ly pur­sue their pas­sion and ath­let­ic goals.”

A show-case of medals for UTC’s Elite programme athletes!

UTC’s Elite ath­letes have proved bril­liant on region­al, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al stages in recent months, reaf­firm­ing the university’s sport­ing excel­lence. Tom Jean­not won the Île-de-France senior trail run­ning cham­pi­onship on May 3, 2026. At the same time, Paul Fortin, a mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing stu­dent, brought home the Bronze Medal from the Grand Prix d’ Épée Grand Prix in Medel­lín, Colom­bia (May 10, 2026). Math­ieu Bruna, a process engi­neer­ing stu­dent on a sports leave of absence, dis­tin­guished him­self in fenc­ing with a 24^th-place fin­ish at the nation­al senior lev­el, com­ple­ment­ed by a 2^nd place fin­ish at the Satel­lite World Cup in Tim­ișoara (Roma­nia) and a 3^rd-place fin­ish at the Nation­al Senior Cir­cuit in Paris.

Vol­ley­ball: A Pres­ti­gious Podi­um Fin­ish for the Women’s Team

At the French Uni­ver­si­ty Cham­pi­onships in Stras­bourg, the three UTC teams impressed and delight­ed spec­ta­tors. The women’s team claimed the title of French run­ner-up after a hard-fought final—an excep­tion­al result! The men’s team fin­ished in 19^th place and the mixed team in 23^rd. In the 400-meter hur­dles, the UTC Elite Sports ath­letes deliv­ered mag­nif­i­cent per­for­mances. Lau­ra Blanc became French run­ner-up, Nina Gou­jon set a per­son­al best of 62’ 44, while Julie Spy ranked 6^th on the French all-time list for her cat­e­go­ry. These per­for­mances high­light the com­mit­ment of the Elite Sports ath­letes and the qual­i­ty of the aca­d­e­m­ic and ath­let­ic sup­port UTC pro­vides them.

KD