Apps, lives, online coaching … How the Covid has fostered the emergence of sport 2.0

Since confinement, thousands of French people have been seduced by sports coaching on the Internet. A trend to which traditional players must adapt.

“Everything went very quickly, it’s impressive”. Almost seven months after the start of confinement, Sarah Ourahmoune still seems surprised by the number of subscribers which continues to grow on her social networks. Since last March, the former world boxing champion has grown from 17,000 to more than 41,000 subscribers on her Instagram account, and already brings together nearly 4,500 Internet users on her YouTube channel. While she had been offering small sports videos online for more than a year on the Internet, the boxer, crowned ten times champion of France, saw the number of her followers soar during confinement. “Like everyone else, I had more time in front of me. So I started doing lives on Instagram, declining sessions for beginners, the more confirmed, parents, and even seniors,” says Sarah Ourahmoune.

In full confinement, and while, for the majority of French people, sports halls are only a distant memory, the concept takes hold: the Olympic vice-champion created her YouTube channel, shares her sessions in replay, commits to do “three to four lives a day”. Motivated by these online sessions, offered free of charge, her subscribers get used to it: in May, at the end of confinement, Sarah Ourahmoune notices that many of them continue to train, and send her feedback on their sessions. The successive restrictions announced by the government, in particular on the closure of sports halls, are reinforcing Internet users in this new habit. “Some have lost five or eight kilos, others are just happy to have returned to sport or to have discovered certain disciplines. It makes me want to continue, to create even more adapted, more regular programs”, confides the boxer, recently named winner of the “Covid Committed” promotion from the Institute of Engagement for her initiative.