Clarisse Crémer signs with Alex Thomson

2023-04-19 18:05:00

Disembarked from Banque Populaire because of her pregnancy, the French sailor has just signed up with the British team for two years.

By VP with AFP

The 33-year-old sailor has joined the team of Briton Alex Thomson, recent buyer of the ex-Apivia Banque Populaire intended for her, and will take over the helm of this monohull for two years thanks to the partnership of L’Occitane en Provence.
© CHRISTOPHE FAVREAU / Christophe Favreau / DPPI via AFP

Published on 19/04/2023 at 18:05

NNew course for the French sailor. Landed by Banque Populaire, Clarisse Crémer announced in a press release on Wednesday that she had found a boat, a team and a sponsor to revive herself, despite her maternity, in view of the Vendée Globe 2024.

The 33-year-old sailor has joined the team of Briton Alex Thomson, recent buyer of the ex-Apivia Banque Populaire intended for her, and will take over the helm of this monohull for two years thanks to the partnership of L’Occitane en Provence. In early February, the young woman, 12^e of the last Vendée Globe and mother of a little girl in November, had plunged the sailing world into embarrassment by announcing that she had been let go by her sponsor because of her pregnancy.

Indeed, new qualification rules for the Vendée Globe take into account the participation in a series of races upstream, and Banque Populaire was worried about the accumulated delay compared to its competitors.

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Open the sail for women

But, faced with the scale of the controversy, the French banking group gave up looking for another skipper and sold its boat to Alex Thomson, a regular in the Vendée Globe who set off without team management.

L’Occitane, which had accompanied Armel Tripon on the last Vendée Globe, joined the project “to promote female leadership in sailing, a competitive universe which is still too largely male”, explained its general manager in the press release.

“The starting line of the Vendée Globe is still a long way off, there are still many challenges to be met, but I am putting all my energy into the success of this project to prove that with desire, determination and the right partners, we can make society, business and sport fairer,” argued the sailor.