At UTC, the uni­ver­si­ty sports office (SUAPS) has a spe­cif­ic sec­tion called UTC Sport Elite. It pro­vides sup­port for high-lev­el ath­letes pur­su­ing a dual sports and aca­d­e­m­ic programme.

Inspir­ing a desire for sports activ­i­ties in the lives of UTC stu­dents is the cre­do of the Uni­ver­si­ty Phys­i­cal and Sports Activ­i­ties Ser­vice (SUAPS). Around 65% of stu­dents take part in at least one phys­i­cal activ­i­ty each aca­d­e­m­ic year. “We orga­nize lots of events and activ­i­ties to encour­age this, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing Olympic Week, which has been intro­duced across all schools. Last year, we even wel­comed the Olympic Games orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee for the launch of Olympic Week. Many sports were rep­re­sent­ed at UTC and not just the Olympic spe­cial­ties. From the bastet (an indoor fit­ness bench) work to Zum­ba, foot­ball and bad­minton. The idea was to encour­age those who don’t indulge in any sports to come and sign up and, above all, to have fun,“ explains Arnaud Van­ni­cat­te, direc­tor of the SUAPS Office, which is respon­si­ble for the gen­er­al orga­ni­za­tion of sports at UTC and the orga­ni­za­tion of “Sports” cours­es (UV TSH). “We are also delight­ed to be able to take advan­tage of the many facil­i­ties that the city of Com­piègne offers UTC stu­dents. We were also present at the Tous unis pour la Cité event in August 2024 to involve stu­dents in the devel­op­ment of the city,” adds Stéphanie Haslin, sports edu­ca­tor and sec­re­tary of the SUAPS.

Recreational sports

The depart­ment also man­ages 1 500 stu­dents and mem­bers dur­ing com­pe­ti­tions and major uni­ver­si­ty tour­na­ments. 300 stu­dents com­pete in uni­ver­si­ty sports under the aus­pices of the UTC Sport asso­ci­a­tion. Stéphanie Haslin also pro­motes sports, par­tic­u­lar­ly among UTC staff mem­bers. ” It’s an inte­gral part of the idea of devel­op­ing recre­ation­al sports to take care of your health. For exam­ple, we have put togeth­er a team of female row­ers, PhD stu­dents and teacher-researchers, who had nev­er rowed in their lives but who, through train­ing, were able to take part in the inter-com­pa­ny row­boat regat­ta on June 22 at the Com­piègne Water Sports Cen­tre. ” In terms of elite sport for high-lev­el ath­letes, UTC enables these ath­letes to pre­pare for their engi­neer­ing degrees under the best pos­si­ble con­di­tions. The cur­ricu­lum is designed to allow each stu­dent-ath­lete to attend class­es and to con­tin­ue train­ing and com­pet­ing. “One of the pio­neers in this area was Robert Col­com­bet, a teacher and researcher who under­stood that it would be an oppor­tu­ni­ty for UTC to have ath­letes among its ranks and that it was nec­es­sary to facil­i­tate their train­ing in con­junc­tion with their aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess. Since then, top ath­letes have been com­ing to UTC, such as Tom Laperche, now a renowned skip­per. Or Anne-Louise Bertagne, who is a mem­ber of the French eques­tri­an dres­sage team,” con­tin­ues Arnaud Van­ni­cat­te. The flex­i­bil­i­ty of UTC’s edu­ca­tion­al mod­el allows stu­dents to com­bine their sport­ing ambi­tions with their stud­ies in the best pos­si­ble way.

Valentine Ribeyrol is bang on target

Valen­tine Ribey­rol, 19, is cur­rent­ly in TC04 and will be start­ing her bio­log­i­cal engi­neer­ing spe­cial­ty next semes­ter. Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, she is con­sid­er­ing a career as an R&D engi­neer or maybe hope­ful­ly to work in pub­lic research after com­plet­ing her PhD. In terms of sports, archery is her elite sport. “I com­pet­ed in the Euro­pean Indoor Archery Cham­pi­onships in Feb­ru­ary and I am the 2025 French Elite Indoor Archery Cham­pi­on. My sta­tus as an elite ath­lete has allowed me to eas­i­ly arrange my sched­ule and take few­er cred­its to bal­ance my sports train­ing and class­es. Elite sports also allow us to reserve “sports slots” in our sched­ules, and our tuto­ri­als are assigned so that these slots remain free. This has allowed me to free up my after­noons to go train­ing, which is a real bonus,” says the cham­pi­on, who, after the French Field Archery Cham­pi­onships in July, is prepar­ing for the next indoor sea­son, includ­ing the Nîmes Archery Tour­na­ment and the selec­tions for the Euro­pean Cham­pi­onships and the French Elite Cham­pi­onships. Valen­tine Ribey­rol trains for this at the Archers de Com­piègne club every evening after class and on Sat­ur­day morn­ings, shoot­ing an aver­age of 120 arrows per train­ing session.

Paris-Roubais 2026 ‑a spirit, values and sharing!

For Chris­t­ian Tel­li­er, a deputy May­or at Com­piègne, in charge of sports events and activ­i­ties, advi­sor to the Aggloméra­tion Délégué Sport and mem­ber of the ANDES admin­is­tra­tive coun­cil, UTC, with its numer­ous stu­dents, is an inte­gral part of life in the city of Com­piègne. ” This will be even more so dur­ing the next Paris-Roubaix cycle race, whose 49th start from Com­piègne is sched­uled for April 12. We have planned lots of activ­i­ties. Twen­ty-five teams of sev­en rid­ers are expect­ed and more than 10 000 spec­ta­tors are expect­ed along the route in our city. The great­est cham­pi­ons will be lin­ing up in Com­piègne, such as Dutch cham­pi­on rid­er Math­ieu Van der Poel. As for the atmos­phere, let’s not for­get that this is the most beau­ti­ful one-day race in the world! The “Dure des Dures”, the 250 km hard-as-hell of the North Depart­ment roads and cob­ble stone stretch­es known through­out the world. “We are also real­ly look­ing for­ward to 2027 to expe­ri­ence the 50th edi­tion of the queen of clas­sics, which promis­es to be spec­tac­u­lar,” says Chris­t­ian Tel­li­er, him­self a keen sports­man dur­ing his uni­ver­si­ty years, when he rowed.

KD