TRIA-FIRST - My first triathlon experience: Promoting physical activity as a tool for health among non active employees with a focus on equality and social inclusion.

TRIA-FIRST is a small scale partnership project, which brings together the grassroots sport organisations, Sport and Tourism Promotion in Belgium and the local Triathlon Club Champagne in France. Both organisations are newcomers and plan to build together a first step of a new triathlon format to encourage healthy lifestyle for all and promote sport as a tool for health, equality and social inclusion. The new triathlon format is called “My first triathlon experience” and consists of an easier accessible combination for people who are not sportive today. The triathlon is composed of 200m swimming, 12km biking and 3 km running. The active participation for this format is envisaged through companies and their employees. European companies are more and more aware that they have to protect the health of their employees and that they need to do more for supporting a healthy sportive lifestyle. The new open triathlon plans to engage 160 employees of 16 companies to participate in a first triathlon experience in France and Belgium in 2024. The focus will be on larger participation of females and include employees with disability. Today, triathlon is a very male dominated sport (80%) and non-sportive people with disability are excluded. My first triathlon experience will be accompanied with an innovative digital App, that will support the employees with a training program between them and a qualified coach for preparation. In function of the objective, the time spent in the project and the physical possibility of the participant, the plan is to design a training program over 12 weeks before the triathlon event. There is one event foreseen for 24/25 June 2024 in France and another event for 21/22 September 2024 in Belgium. The later one would also support the European Week of Sport 2024. Furthermore, the project will encourage the civic engagement and offer volunteers to support the new open triathlon format and accompanying the participants with disability during the event.