This result come one month after the French U-20 National Men’s Rugby team has won their first World Rugby title. It was France’s first top-three finish in the Junior World Championship ever as they went undefeated through group play and managed to upset the six-time champion, New Zealand, in the semi-finals and then England in the final match.

Both teams stayed at Aspetar, the orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital in Qatar, for their winter training camps back in November 2017 and February 2018. The French national Women’s team and Men’s Juniors used innovative training methodologies such as “Repeated Sprint in Hypoxia”, “Live high, train low” and “Heat acclimation”.

Aspetar, has been collaborating with the French Rugby Federation for almost seven years now. The aim of this collaboration is to develop innovative training methodologies that help to improve team performance. This partnership has recently been strengthened by the signing of another Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the French National Institute of Sport (INSEP) and Aspire Zone Foundation [Aspetar’s parent organisation].

It all started when the French national junior team first came to Doha in 2014 after winning the Gold medal at the Youth Olympics to benefit from Aspetar’s altitude facilities, which offer hypoxic training by imitating high altitudes to enhance athlete performance. The hyper-intensive training helps maximise results and improve athlete performance over a short period of time.

Designed specifically for elite training camps, Aspetar’s altitude dormitories allow athletes to improve endurance by stimulating the body to increase production of red blood cells, thus improving the oxygen transport in the blood. The rooms can replicate an altitude range of 500m to 5500m, enabling athletes to “live high, train low”. The facility, which houses up to 50 athletes, also uses advanced technology that enables conditions to be monitored remotely from anywhere in the world.

Dr. Sebastien Racinais, Research Scientist and Head of Athlete Health and Performance at Aspetar, revealed why the French national rugby teams chose Aspetar for their training camps:

“They are always looking for new training tools and procedures based on sports science. This is exactly what Aspetar can offer. For example, Aspetar has been at the forefront in developing repeated sprinting at altitude as a new training model. They are also training in the heat as a performance booster – another new field developed by Aspetar. Our advanced research encourages teams to come to Aspetar and while they are here they rapidly increase athlete fitness in a short time”.

The training included the use of special treadmills available at Aspetar and only one other country. Aspetar experts use this treadmill to measure the ground reaction force for every step made against the ground.

While she was in Aspetar back in November, Fanny Horta, captain of the French Female Rugby 7 National Team, described her stay at Aspetar by saying:

“[Staying at the altitude rooms] was the best way for us to acclimatise to the temperature, because it’s very cold now in France and the low temperature could have a negative impact on our preparation. All this helped us to be in ideal conditions to work on our performance.”

David Courteix, Coach of the French Female Rugby 7 National Team, Technical Staff at the French Federation of Rugby, said:

“We are here for a pre-competition ‘sharpening’ training camp. We want to train with a huge training load and exceptional training conditions, and we have the chance to do that here at Aspetar thanks to the partnership between the French Federation of Rugby, INSEP, and Aspetar.”

Back in February, Sébastien Piqueronies, the U20 French National Team Manager, said:

“We came to Doha for a development training camp for our best under 20 Rugby XV players and under 18 Rugby 7 players. We select the best U18, U19, and U20 players and bring them to this development stage here at Aspetar, where we can benefit from wonderful infrastructure and expertise. During this training camp alone, we have used Aspetar’s perfectly maintained pitch and the impressive range of sports equipment to full effect, all of which has helped our players develop. The culture of excellence has been particularly important, with state-of-the-art equipment such as the altitude rooms instilling our players with the belief that they can be the best.”