Agreement with FFTT

Team Lagardère, have signed a three-year partnership agreement

Gérard Velten, President of the French Table Tennis Federation (FFTT), Arnaud Molinié, Executive Director in charge of coordinating and leading Lagardère SCA, and Xavier Moreau, Managing Director of Team Lagardère, have signed a three-year partnership agreement.

Under the agreement, Team Lagardère, which was officially launched on 13 December 2005 by Arnaud Lagardère, will become “Official Partner to the French Table Tennis Federation”.

The FFTT has created the France Promotion Group as a means of providing support to promising young players in France, with a view towards the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Based at the Paris Jean-Bouin sports complex, Team Lagardère is a multisport organization forging innovative new approaches to athletic training. By applying scientific expertise to the world of sport, Team Lagardère aims to help elite athletes improve their level of performance.

This partnership, designed to identify potential medallists during the course of upcoming European and international meets, is centred on two key areas:

• The France Promotion Group will receive advice, support and expert analysis from Team Lagardère’s centre for scientific expertise. The Group will collaborate with Christian Miller, manager of Team Lagardère technical platform, and his team of researchers to evaluate and analyse the physical and muscular capabilities of Group athletes, provide help in developing their training programmes and optimise performance levels.
• Team Lagardère will become an “Official Partner to the French Table Tennis Federation”, entitling it to collective image rights for the male players within the France Promotion Group, and its name will be displayed on the kits of the athletes who make up the Group.

This partnership with the French Table Tennis Federation is consistent with Team Lagardère’s overall strategy: to draw on its centre of scientific expertise to develop a multisport programme for improving athletic performance and promote the emergence of future champions.

Says Gérard Velten, “This partnership is a perfect example of a coherent, multipronged approach and offers a desirable synergy with the business world. The France Promotion Group already receives support from the French government in the form of technical and human resources, and enjoys access to the FFTT’s resources as well. The additional aid for athletes provided by Team Lagardère caps off this effort and is likely to help these athletes make it on to winners’ podiums around the world.“

According to Jean-Philippe Gatien, 1993 World Champion, two-time Olympic medallist and sponsor of the France Promotion Group, “This multisport project from Team Lagardère will provide both players and trainers with a better understanding of their sport through tools to help them prepare for events as well as a higher-quality training structure. In addition, it will promote exchanges with players and trainers from other disciplines.”

“Table tennis is now the second sport, after tennis, to receive the support of Team Lagardère—a reflection of the project’s multisport perspective,” adds Xavier Moreau. “Partnership agreements with other sporting federations will be announced in the very near future.”Copyright-free photos of the signing ceremony for the partnership agreement as well as comments from the principal partners to the agreement are available in the Press area of the Team Lagardère website: www.teamlagardere.com