Be a sport instructor

Ioana Popescu, Aurore Chardoux and Malena Gautelier were all motivated by the first “Des Métiers Pluri’Elles” conferences. One of them was in training, one in the process of a career change, and one already a sport instructor, and they gave us an account of their career and sent a strong message to girls and women who would like to take the plunge and train as sport instructors: dare to do it !

« WOMEN HAVE THEIR PLACE IN SPORT ! »

They reflect the variety of paths leading to jobs in sport management and coaching. Ioana Popescu, present at the “Des Métiers Pluri’Elles” conference in Normandy, is a former top-level table tennis player and the 2008 French champion. Since then she has been a table tennis coach and works in the SPO Rouen club. Her story revealed some of the prejudices about women’s place in sport, and the comments she had to put up with. “People often asked me what I did for a living. Yes, I’m a table tennis coach, that’s my job” she insisted.

” There’s still a very firmly held idea for girls that sport can’t be a job, whether you are a top-level athlete or a coach”. A few weeks earlier, Aurore Chardoux had told us her career path at the conference in Auvergne-Rhone Alpes. She was a care assistant for 8 years, and practised and taught combat sports. She decided to change career and is now following a training course to obtain her BPJEPS “APT” (Physical Activity for All) in Moulins (Allier).  “ In coaching it’s the same as in practice, there are still very few women. There are 18 students on my course: 17 men and me ”. 

Malena Gautelier had the same tale to tell, at the Bourgogne Franche-Comté conference. She is following a BPJEPS APT course alongside two other women and 14 boys. Taking her place among a lot of men is not really a problem for this young woman, who is currently an apprentice in the “Les Redoubstables” rugby club – a discipline which still has few women.

The motivation varied for each woman. Aurore Chardoux, for example, explains that she wanted to use her job “to promote health and well-being through sport”, while Ioana Popescu wants to transmit “the value of constantly excelling oneself offered by sport”. For her part, Manela Gautelier stresses the impact of her job on girls, “pleased to be able to identify [with her] and to tell themselves that these jobs are not reserved for men”. Together, they convey the message full of hope from Aurore Chardoux, in Moulins: “I want to invite all those women who are not quite sure to take the plunge, because, from a personal and professional point of view, it’s worth it. Women have their place in sport. It is just waiting for us ! ”