At Decathlon, they don't sign athletes anymore. They sign experts.

There's a word that has nearly vanished from Decathlon's communication. It's not "cheap". It's "athlete".

When the brand signed runner Paul Chelimo in 2023, its running category manager didn't introduce him as a sponsored sprinter, but as "an incredible running expert". Kiprun, the group's running and trail brand, describes itself as "Decathlon group's expert running brand". That choice of vocabulary isn't a communication detail. It tells the whole story of Decathlon's transformation over the past two years.

A logo before the athletes

The real starting point isn't sporting, it's graphic. In March 2024, Decathlon changed its logo for a blue "orbit" the brand hopes will one day be as recognizable as Nike's swoosh, and adopted a new tagline, "Ready to play". The retailer also simplified its portfolio of in-house brands: nine sport families on one side (Quechua, Domyos, Kipsta...), and four "expert brands" on the other, including Kiprun for running and trail. The stated goal from the brand's management: shift perception, putting design and technical performance ahead of price.

Changing a logo is easy. Changing what people think of a brand is a lot harder.

Griezmann, Alex Sarr: proof by budget

To gauge the real ambition behind this repositioning, just look at what Decathlon was willing to pay for it. In January 2025, Antoine Griezmann left Puma after fourteen years to become Kipsta's global ambassador, Decathlon's football brand. Two months later, Alex Sarr, a forward for the Washington Wizards in the NBA, became a technical partner and exclusive footwear supplier for the brand, with genuine R&D work on the product.

These aren't casual choices. You don't sign a French international or an NBA player for the visibility of a logo on a jersey. You sign them to borrow a credibility you don't have yet.

The word that changes everything

An athlete wears a product. An expert thinks it through with you.

That's exactly what the contract signed with Mathieu Blanchard in April 2026 confirms. The former Salomon runner, winner of the 2024 Diagonale des Fous, left the historic trail brand after nine years to join Kiprun. And Blanchard isn't just a trail runner: he's also a trained engineer. Kiprun didn't bring him on to wear a pair of shoes at a start line, but to put his engineer's eye to work on product design, using extreme races, including the Hardrock 100, as a genuine field test lab.

Kiprun has also sponsored Blandine L'Hirondel since 2022. In 2026, she won the women's UTMB wearing the KIPSUMMIT RACE, presented by the brand as its most accomplished trail racing shoe. In both cases, the logic is the same: the athlete isn't the showcase for the product, she's part of it.

And beyond athletes, entire races

Decathlon doesn't stop at image contracts. The brand is also moving into the event layer. The Grand Raid Kiprun 3 Vallées, a new ultra-trail in the Tarentaise valley running up to 170 km, launches its first edition in 2026 directly under the brand's name. Kiprun is also a partner of the Valencia 10K through 2027 and organizes its own race in Singapore.

It's exactly the logic I described in my article on sports sponsoring: a brand that no longer just buys ad space, but embeds itself in an event's entire ecosystem, athletes included.

Personal takeaway

What interests me about the Decathlon case isn't the list of contracts, it's the consistency between them. A new logo, "experts" instead of athletes, engineers who design the product, races that carry the brand's name directly: this isn't a campaign, it's a multi-year strategy being built layer by layer.

One question I don't have a ready-made answer for: can a brand really change its image through sponsoring, however massive, if the product and the customer experience don't keep pace? For now, Decathlon is still the store where you also buy a €40 tent and a €5 ball.