Alessia Zarbo: “As long as I can do sport, I’ll do sport”

Met on Wednesday, July 9, at the launch of the HOKA Rocket X 3 at Charléty Stadium, Alessia Zarbo opened up about her life, training and recent partnership with the American brand.

Recently crowned silver medallist in the 10,000m at the European Cup in Pacé, Ille-et-Vilaine, Alessia Zarbo did not come out of nowhere. A former triathlete from Antibes with multiple France team selections dating back to her early athletics years, she trains hard, but on her own terms, to stay at the highest level. After dealing with recurring stress fractures, she has had to adapt her lifestyle, find her balance and draw on her reserves to keep going, unlike some of her teammates from previous years.

Promising beginnings

Drawn to triathlon, which her cousin took part in, the young athlete from southern France tried the sport at the age of nine. She was quickly thrust into the sporting world and trained far more than most other 12- and 13-year-old girls. So much so that she quickly stood out in competitions, then on the running circuit, particularly in cross-country, where she was often at the front of the pack. “I like to believe I have good genes,” she says, aware that podiums do not always come so easily. Her parents, however, are not serious athletes. “They do sport because I do sport now,” she explains. Her mother, who has always swum, nevertheless played a part in getting her started in the water. Alessia can never thank triathlon enough for giving her “an insane aerobic base.”

A difficult few years

Entered in the 10,000m at the Paris Olympics, Alessia unfortunately had to drop out, after chronic fatigue had been holding her body back for more than six months. “I kept picking up little injuries simply because my body was no longer recovering. It was the result of complete overtraining. I lacked stability, got injured, overcompensated and had reached the end of the road. Everything was inflamed, everything hurt. I was out of breath all the time, and mentally it was really tough.” While she searched for a more suitable way to train, she suffered two setbacks over the past few years. “To compensate, I threw myself into cycling, swimming, anything I could. When I come back from injury, I’m not really starting from scratch.”

Since mid-March, she has finally been feeling better. “I managed to string together two or three weeks of running without any abnormal pain.” The run of injuries was exhausting, both for her and those close to her: “What kept me going and helped me come back was my support network. I had support that few people get.”

That Wednesday morning, she said she had completed a demanding session: 4 x (1,000m, 300m, 200m). “It had been a long time since I’d run 1,000s under three minutes and felt comfortable,” says the former athlete coached by François Chiron at INSEP, who accompanied her by bike throughout the session. Since returning, she has seen progress every week: “I’m making the most of the fact that I haven’t hit a plateau yet.”

“ This is my most complete season since 2018. I’d rather keep it that way, even if it ends in August.
Alessia Zarbo

A lifestyle that finally fits

After several difficult years, she is slowly getting back on track. Having returned from Oregon in 2023, where she had started a business degree specialising in finance and accounting, she has managed to find a lifestyle better suited to her needs. “Over there, I really had my independence and my own life. I was planning to do a master’s, but I was injured throughout my final year. There were a lot of questions: the coach was changing, the team grew from 15 to 30, lots of younger athletes were arriving… It was a slightly chaotic two years, but it shaped me enormously as a person and an athlete. I wouldn’t be able to train the way I do today if I hadn’t left, because I learned to understand myself. ”

Back in France, she spent some time juggling several locations before moving back into her childhood home in Antibes. Large enough to preserve her independence, she shares it with her parents without any problem. She even calls them her “multi-activity children,” since her father is away during the week and her mother is “always off here, there and everywhere.” This year, she genuinely feels good there: “I have a really great setup for training.”

Everything now seems to flow in the Antibes athlete’s life: up at 9 a.m., then a run and swimming in the morning. “My mother swims at the same time as me and brings me my things. By noon, I’m done,” says the Racing Multi Athlon athlete. She still regularly trains in the pool with her club, Antibes Triathlon. Coached by Ludovic Beaugrand, “Cassandre’s dad,” whom she met “by chance at middle school, running laps around the track,” and supported by her father, Alessia enjoys doing her sessions alone or with male teammates. Her coach provides a training framework and handles around 30 to 40% of the quality work in her running. She manages the rest herself: “The aerobic work and all the strength and conditioning stuff, that’s my boyfriend.” Her coach supports her whenever she needs it, as does her father: “It’s real support.”

This new flexible schedule suits her perfectly: “It’s not like INSEP, where everything is more structured, and that doesn’t necessarily suit me.” Combining different perspectives, moving forward at her own pace and according to her needs, “listening to her body,” is what has allowed her to return to her best without getting injured again. “I was able to string together months of training and turn several months of work into results by competing at the European Championships. But I hope this is only the beginning,” says Alessia, energised by her excellent current form.

A new partnership that suits her perfectly

HOKA approached her after the Lille 10K. “Before that, I didn’t have any sponsors,” she says gratefully. “I ran 32:28 in Lille, which was a very good performance, but for me it didn’t yet justify everything they were offering at that point.” The conversation with the brand moved quickly: “I felt they were ready to invest in me as much as I invest in my training.”

Thanks to the partnership, the 10,000m specialist can make a comfortable living. Alongside equipment, her contract includes an annual retainer paid in two instalments, as well as bonuses linked to performances in certain races or rankings. “People rarely talk about how these contracts work. There’s a set scale: whenever I improve my personal best in the 1,500m, half marathon, cross-country and so on, I get a bonus.” explains the athlete, who trains independently.

When she announced her partnership with HOKA on social media in April, she was particularly excited to join “a brand that is making its mark, with real resources, while still keeping a very human outlook.” She is looking forward to seeing the teams and athletes at events. “There’s a real desire to be a proper team. For example, at FAST5000, a coach and a manager were there, with a space where we could leave our belongings. It’s nice to feel that sense of belonging. ”

Big targets ahead

With the 30:20 qualifying standard for the Tokyo World Championships, taking place from September 13 to 21, out of reach, Alessia is not making it a priority. Despite the French 10,000m record having recently been lowered to 31:23 by Mekdes Woldu at the Leiden Meeting in the Netherlands, it is clear that nobody will hit the standard. Not even the record-holder herself, whom Alessia admired as a child and who paced her three times to help her break 9:45 and qualify for the European U18 Championships. Nor today’s Alessia, who has since become her friend. “I could have made it through the rankings if I found another 10,000m and ran a good time, but there really aren’t many opportunities,” admits the middle-distance runner. There is no hint of frustration in her voice, more a sense of satisfaction: “This is my most complete season since 2018. I’d rather keep it that way, even if it ends in August. With road races and cross-country, I might have better opportunities in the autumn.”

With no 10,000m on the schedule, she is considering trying other distances, including the 1,500m, her first in five years, before the French Elite Championships in Talence, August 1–3, where she will race the 5,000m. “It’s just to get my legs moving,” she explains. “Ideally, I would have liked to run a properly prepared 3,000m, but the only one was in Marseille and it came too early in my training cycle.” The 1,500m is proving to be the best option. Now she needs to find a race in the coming weeks. “The advantage I have is that I’m not very fast, so even an average race could suit me,” she tells herself. And if nothing comes up? “It’s not the end of the world. At worst, I’ll run a 1,000m on my own in training.”

Calm and relaxed, Alessia is not allowing herself to be overwhelmed by a sparse end-of-season schedule. But she still has the last major summer appointment firmly in her sights. “I’m going to the French Elite Championships in Talence aiming for a podium, because a medal is a big deal,” she says, before immediately putting things into perspective: “Whether you finish first, second, third or fourth, it’s not going to change the face of the world.” Her real goal? Feeling that she has given her best. “At the European Championships, I was disappointed because I didn’t feel like I raced my way. Maybe I managed it badly. Things happened in the race that meant I didn’t go with the pack at the right moment, and we wasted a lot of energy…” Why not pull off another surprise like the one at the European Cup? “Even with 32:30, I would have been happy. I knew I was in shape, but I hadn’t run at my level for three years,” she says of her first international medal in a long time.

After the intense first weekend of August, the southern French athlete will take a break and ease off track sessions before returning in September. However, the threshold-running enthusiast will keep cycling and focus on long runs with threshold work.

One day, the target will no longer be the French Championships, but something on another scale. Returning to her roots is an obvious choice for Alessia: “I’ll do a half Ironman, for sure. For now, athletics remains my priority.” Sometimes she already gives in to the temptation, as she did last Sunday when she took part in an aquathlon “just to enjoy myself.” A marathon is also on her mind: “I’ll run one much later on. And maybe a half marathon before the end of the year, because I love threshold work.” But how do you choose? She laughs: “If I could do everything, I’d do everything.””

Boundless energy, channelled into running… and relationships

Her answer is surprising when asked why she gets up every morning to run: “What I love is the discipline of training.” For her, being able to do what she loves is a privilege. It is rare for her not to feel like training. And when it happens, she knows it is better to listen to herself. Later in the conversation, she adds: “The endorphins you get afterwards,” she says with a smile, before describing the real source of her childhood passion: “I tried judo, tennis, golf… But nothing clicked. I think I mostly liked winning.”

Over the years, her motivation has changed. “Today, it’s more about a sense of achievement. Whether in training, competition or even during an injury.” She has every reason to be proud of her career. Yet she does not see herself as a “sporty person” in the traditional sense: “Even though people see me as super active because I’m always on the move, I don’t want to do sport all day. I don’t want to play badminton with my mother in the garden or go hiking for three days. I enjoy it once for the experience, but that’s where it ends.” Nor does she see herself as competitive: “If you beat me at a board game, I don’t care. As long as I’ve beaten myself, that’s enough for me.”

In the end, what matters most is not how she defines herself, but what she gets from this life. Beyond her passion for running, it is the moments she shares that stay with her: her friendships, family and partner. “Sometimes I imagine stopping athletics tomorrow. I think I’d never see Anaïs Bourgoin and Bérénice Cleyet-Merle again… no way,” she says. It is not only her INSEP friends she would miss, but also “France team selections, which are impossible to understand until you’ve experienced them.” Very different from club trips, they rank among the “top three best things in the world. I’ve laughed until my abs hurt for days,” concludes the regular France team representative. “I’ve missed a lot of them and turned down more than one… It’s horrible, but when you go, it’s always memorable.”

What better wish for an athlete who speaks so openly into the microphone and tells her story with stars in her eyes than many more France team selections, races finished with the feeling that she gave everything, and friendships in athletics that endure? She will not be leaving the track or the roads anytime soon, as she says with conviction: “As long as I can do sport, I’ll do sport.”