After winning the boccia gold medal during the Paralympic Games, Aurélie Aubert landed a sponsor with a chocolate brand that she had not failed to appeal to.
This year, the Paralympic Games took place from August 28 to September 8 in Paris. As the event approaches, several questions have arisen, including why deaf and hard of hearing athletes do not participate in the events. It was also announced that athletes who had a tattoo representing the Olympic rings would not be able to participate.
During the event, one athlete stood out. This is Aurélie Aubert, a Paralympic boccia champion who won the gold medal during the competition. She became one of the figures of the Paris Paralympic Games and had the honor of extinguishing the Olympic flame at the Stade de France at the beginning of September. Her exploits helped her stand out and popularize her discipline, boccia, a bowls sport related to pétanque.
Photo credit: France Paralympic
After winning the gold medal, Aurélie Aubert was invited to numerous television sets. On September 5, she told an anecdote about her journey on the set of “Quels Jeux”, a show broadcast on France Télévisions: to motivate her, her coach used Kinder chocolates instead of the jack (the equivalent of the jack in boccia). A method which bore fruit since Aurélie won the gold medal. According to Le Parisien, the young woman took advantage of this anecdote to launch an appeal to the brand in order to have a sponsor:
“I hope Kinder will sponsor us!” she asserted with confidence.
A sponsor for Aurélie Aubert
Three months later, Aurélie Aubert learned good news: Kinder, the famous chocolate brand which belongs to the Ferrero group, heard her call and agreed to sponsor her.
“The story is quite disconcerting and very beautiful. We were inundated with messages from employees who absolutely wanted us to sponsor it. It was born like that,” explained Fausto Rotelli, director of external affairs for Ferrero in France, to Le Figaro.
Photo credit: Getty Images
If Aurélie Aubert simply thought she would receive chocolates from the brand, the latter went further since it offered her great financial assistance to cover all her sports-related costs, with a view to the Paralympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028. Thus, the The Kinder company will cover Aurélie Aubert’s sporting, management, travel, logistics and equipment costs. If the partnership was signed for the year 2025, it remains renewable.
“The idea is really to continue to Los Angeles, to give it visibility, stability to face the future, because that’s the difficulty for para-sport athletes,” said Fausto Rotelli.
This situation is unprecedented because it is the first time that such a proposal has reached a Paralympic boccia athlete. In addition to this, Aurélie Aubert became an ambassador for the “Kinder Joy of Moving” program, which encourages young people to take up sports. A call to nerve that paid off.
