Rennes (AFP)

No more football, gym, biking, swimming pool ... However, sports practice remains in confinement: businesses still open online are struggling to follow orders for sporting goods and the audience of courses in video explodes.

According to an Odoxa survey conducted last week, 38% of those questioned said that they practiced a sport, compared to 41% a month earlier. "But the methods are very different," comments Magali Tezenas du Montcel, general delegate of Sporsora, which brings together more than 150 players in the sport economy.

Contrary to a frequently mocked impression on social networks, the number of joggers has not exploded. According to the survey, 13% of respondents said they had done at least one jog in the week, compared to 12% a month earlier.

Sport Heroes, which offers apps that encourage sports, has seen a stable number of running outings during the first week of confinement, then a slight decrease. At the same time, the distances traveled increased from an average of 9.3 km before to 7.2 km during containment.

It is inside that we move now. Whether it is to maintain your fitness level, avoid excess pounds, keep the kids busy, let off steam, fight stress and anxiety ... sporting activity has become part of everyday confinement.

Since the closure of its stores in mid-March, the Decathlon group has seen its orders for sporting goods double, with more than 10,000 orders per week.

"The most popular products currently are related to fitness (skipping ropes, elastics, dumbbells, floor mats ...) but also exercise bikes, treadmills, as well as ping-pong tables and bikes for kids, "said a spokesperson.

- "New offer" -

Sporting goods are also widely watched on Amazon, even if the online sales giant, contacted by AFP, gives no figures.

However, other groups have ceased all activity. "Sporting goods are not basic necessities", explains an Intersport spokesperson, also evoking reasons of safety for the staff and organization, insofar as the group's deliveries are made from stores and not from warehouses.

Instead, Intersport offers videos, exercise sheets, recipes and testimonials on its website to help everyone play sports and keep fit. Decathlon does the same: on its sports coaching application, new users were multiplied by four and the number of sessions viewed tripled during the first week of confinement.

Sport Heroes has also adapted its offer with a wealth of challenges to take up at home. And its 1.2 million subscribers have played the game, with a surge in yoga (+ 327%), indoor cycling (+ 341%) and muscle building (+ 147%) activities.

From start-ups to large groups, including sports federations such as that of cycling which offers its licensees access to the Kinomap platform - allowing for example to make a stage of the Tour de France by exercise bike -, "There is a burst of creativity and imagination so that the French continue to keep themselves in good shape," notes Ms. Tezenas du Montcel.

"All this new offer comes to compensate for the classic offer" for users, who for some thus discover the interest of sports, she rejoices.

But this new offer is essentially free and containment remains a disaster for the entire sports sector, whose activity is now almost at a standstill. Thus at Decathlon, only 400 of the 23,000 employees of the group are still at work to process online orders.

© 2020 AFP