what does it mean to be a high-performing athlete?

Stopwatch, kilometres covered, VO2 max, recovery time: all statistics that are invading our social networks, since speed and endurance sports have been on the rise. More than ever, the experience must be shared, shown, proven. And while, it seems to us, performance continues to be intrinsic, performing seems to have become an activity to be exercised in front of the greatest number. The dissemination of quantifiable data produces an immediate comparison, averages are drawn, objectives are imposed: an injunction to performance occurs.

But if we leave these media spheres, to go directly to the courses, what is really going on? How is high-level performance perceived and experienced, by the athletes on the front line, but also by the research and development teams who supervise them? For Alchimist, French and Scottish trail runners Aurore Dacier and Naomi Lang, as well as Marlène Giandolini, research and sciences lab manager at Salomon, tried to answer the question: what does it mean to be high-performing?

Giving your best

This is undoubtedly the most obvious answer when talking about physical performance. “For me, what matters most is knowing if I did well, if I pushed myself to the limit, if I did everything I was able to do,” Aurore tells us. A discourse that perfectly aligns with Naomi's, who explains: “I think a good race is when you feel like you've given everything, that you've given all you had; when your body responds as it should.”

Above all, they never talk about a place to reach or a time to meet, but highlight the idea of a challenge. If Aurore says she is curious to see how far her body can go in races of a certain difficulty, Naomi evokes a form of challenge in testing her limits. When asked about performing as a woman, both athletes proudly state that they have never considered their gender an obstacle to success. “It doesn't scare me, and even if I were the only girl, it wouldn't have stopped me. It also comes from an idea, and even a certainty: we are capable [as women] of doing the same thing, the same courses, the same races,” Aurore maintains.

For Marlène, who works internally at Salomon, the brand's entire objective lies in this leitmotif: Unleash the best version of yourself. As a brand, being high-performing means precisely creating, improving, or establishing an environment, beyond just products, to “enable every athlete, globally, to develop the best of themselves, while maintaining their physical and mental integrity.”

The final race is in reality only the tip of the iceberg; training sessions are of paramount importance. Aurore always tries to ask herself if she respected the race plan and trained enough. Naomi confirms: “I think the best way to be ready is obviously to train,” specifying, however, that this doesn't necessarily mean training more, but more intelligently. “Indeed, to take up the races that Naomi and Aurore have done, these are long-term projects that demand a lot of self-sacrifice and investment from the athletes,” Marlène concludes.

But training alone never guarantees the outcome of a race. “It happens that athletes prepare for an entire season for a given event, that they have done everything they needed to do, but are forced to abandon due to a blister or heatstroke on the day. The reality of a discipline like running or trail running is that.” At Salomon, she specifies, “we therefore seek to preserve the body, not simply to ensure physical performance, but to ensure its longevity over a career.”

Being high-performing, if you get injured twice a season, is not being high-performing.

Marlène Giandolini, Salomon

Naomi is aware that races are rarely as we imagined them. Being high-performing particularly comes into play at this level: when conditions are not in our favour, and yet we must, more than ever, push ourselves. “Sometimes, I feel like I'm not having as good a day as I'd like, but if I can manage with what I have, then I can be satisfied with my performance. […] In the end, I think that's what a good race is: it's not necessarily about the result, but about knowing that you gave the maximum of what you could give that day.”

In addition to physical performance, there is a mental exercise, because if the body can sometimes let us down, our mind can prove to be a formidable enemy. Both admit that they have experienced self-inflicted pressure. Aurore managed to break free from it by quickly realising that she preferred to ask herself if she had given her all, rather than feeling guilty about what she should have done differently. Naomi, for her part, reveals that she performs better in races when she is relaxed and does things her own way, without letting negative thoughts overwhelm her.

Focusing on your own practice

Trail running remains an individual practice, where the same trail is approached in multiple ways. Entry into the discipline also differs from person to person, as evidenced by the journeys of our athletes. Both introduced to sports from childhood, they discovered running in opposite circumstances: during adolescence through a group of friends for Naomi, and alone at the end of high school for Aurore. The Frenchwoman associates running, then trail running, with privileged moments during which she can clear her mind, find herself, and be close to nature. The Scot long associated it with a more collective sport, due to the particular context in which she discovered it, where she enjoys having fun and meeting new personalities.

It was when they became professional, and perhaps even more so when they joined the Salomon performance centre, that their experience became part of something more global. They met more peers and became more subject to comparison. For Aurore, her introduction to the competitive world was through Salomon. “But it's true that when you join a professional team, when you really come out of an amateur world, it makes you question your legitimacy, especially in the first year. I joined a team of people I never thought I'd meet. My colleagues at Salomon are really superstars. So, I remember the first time I arrived at the training camp, I wondered what I was doing there.” For Naomi, there was a certain apprehension about joining Salomon, at the idea of being part of “such a formidable team.” However, natural comparison quickly gave way to a sense of belonging, and more particularly a great sisterhood among the female athletes, who are numerous at Salomon.

But the comparison is not limited to the field; it now extends beyond its boundaries, accentuated by the rise of social networks and performance applications. On Instagram, both Naomi and Aurore have chosen to remain discreet, a strategy also adopted on Strava where they only follow their close friends. By stepping away from the comparison game, they recentre themselves on their own practice. Naomi summarises: “I think it's much healthier to measure your performance by comparing yourself to yourself rather than to others.”

I am not sport. I do sport.

Aurore Dacier

Aurore takes the discussion further: “It's essential to put yourself at the centre, so that sport doesn't become the main subject, to the point of feeling like you're nobody without it.”

Without even coordinating, the athletes explain that being high-performing is first and foremost a personal feeling. “I think everyone has their own way of doing things: some methods work for some and not for others. So I would say it's all about finding balance,” Naomi tells us.

A vision shared by Marlène internally. “Being a high-performing brand means not considering that all the people we address are equal and similar, in their aspirations, their physical qualities, their personal, medical, and sporting history. And it is precisely our role to offer them solutions so that they can deploy the best of themselves.” At Salomon, the aim is not to standardise, but to personalise. To ensure an optimal experience, the athlete must adopt a routine that suits them, and equip themselves with products that are adapted to their needs. On the question of equipment, Marlène believes that there is a “somewhat imaginary dimension, where athletes project themselves and tell themselves that if they wear the same thing as another, they will necessarily achieve the same performance. With social networks, false beliefs circulate. However, what works for one does not work for another.”

Having good support

A journey is done alone, but it is experienced and prepared as a team. Athletes like Aurore and Naomi have respectively left Hong Kong where she works and Edinburgh where she studies, for competitions. They are discovering certain long-distance races for the first time. These are all upheavals that can directly affect the performance of a high-level female athlete.

Since the 2000s, Salomon has offered a service to athletes aimed at customising products. And for the past three years, the brand has been trying to think more exhaustively about the question of performance. “It's a complex question because it's linked to many factors, some of which are absolutely not related to products: nutrition, mental health, the development of physical qualities. We try not only to support them on the product, but on all performance criteria,” Marlène maintains. This means that the brand is committed to having experts in all fields: medical professionals, physiotherapists, rehabilitation specialists, nutritionists, race strategy managers. And Naomi and Aurore confirm it, the Salomon team believed in them, sometimes more than they allowed themselves to.

Salomon explains that it has more and more resources to understand both what athletes, both amateur and professional, need and what they want, in response to their growing needs. “From a methodological point of view, we develop products designed to support runners over the course of a race and a career. We use physiological methods to understand the performance of this or that material. We also use biomechanics, which allows us to measure the stress I apply to my joints with this or that equipment. We are also increasingly studying thermoregulation aspects to try to improve heat management in running. We use sensory analysis to capture the subjective and emotional relationship that the person has with their product: studies have shown that the risk of injury decreases when the perception of comfort increases.”

Beyond the result, Marlène tells us that there is a lot of respect. “We support the athlete to achieve what they want, with what they have and what they are comfortable with. The idea is that the athlete arrives on race day with as few doubts as possible; they must feel good, confident.”

However, concerns can arise, especially as women. “On the other hand, where there are limitations, it's in the organisation of races – and fortunately, it's a little better today. When you're a woman, the infrastructure isn't always designed for you.” Many circuits don't sufficiently take into account women's specific logistical needs: absence of private changing rooms to change bras, or insufficient number of toilets and hygiene kits available during their periods. Trail running, which welcomes a growing number of women, now seems to better consider their constraints. But measures must continue to be taken to facilitate their experience, in the same way as that of their male counterparts, otherwise it will create a barrier to entry for those who wish to start.

These testimonials do not claim to be representative. Nevertheless, they provide food for thought and answers to a thorny question: what does it mean to be high-performing? The story would undoubtedly have been different with more media-exposed athletes, who have been performing at a high level for longer, whose performances are scrutinised and commented on, and who have to deal with a much higher level of expectation. As trail running and running are undergoing significant changes, it seems essential to give a voice to those who make them live, as well as to the expert shadow figures who contribute to their monitoring.

Article in collaboration with Salomon