The Sophia Games actually encompass around 40 disciplines. Some began as early as last week due to the numerous groups (football, volleyball). Shooting is also included in these disciplines. For the rest, the events will take place in turns, in the morning and in the afternoon.
This year is expected to be a record year as the organizers have already registered 6,500 entries. Last year, the event ended with about 8,500 participants.
For Etienne Delhaye, director of the Sophia Corporate Club that organizes them, the final result this year should be higher.
The first Sophia Antipolis games were created, I believe, recounts Etienne Delhaye, in 1994.
“In this first edition, there were only 3 or 4 disciplines. The participants were only a few dozen. In 23 years, the progress made is incredible” – he tells us with no small amount of pride.
And he continues to tell the “little” story: “At the time, it was called the Directors’ Club. Since 2014, the club has changed in scale, in ambition. It has become the Sophia Corporate Club, which includes among its members 120 leaders responsible for 18,000 jobs. We truly are the business group of Sophia.”
“The goal of the Sophia Games is to create inter-company ties, social bonds. We wanted to avoid Sophia-Antipolis becoming merely a business dormitory town. A place where people come in the morning, do their work in isolation, in their own caves, and leave in the evening. We believe that the spirit of Sophia is not that. There are technological, scientific collaborations between companies, with the university. There are also social links, between the stakeholders, between people, and sport is the preferred vector to develop this social bond. That’s why we organize these games every year. To recreate this link. And more and more people seem to be attracted,” he says.
by Thomas Lagesse, EdJ
