Excitement is growing ahead of padel’s debut in this summer’s UK Corporate Games in Leeds.
As revealed by The Padel Paper last October, padel will be added to the sporting programme for this year’s 31st edition of the Games – a multi-sport employee wellbeing event that brings together thousands of competitors from hundreds of businesses across the UK to engage employees, raise brand awareness, compete, network and socialise.
Chapel Allerton Tennis and Squash Club, situated in a leafy suburb north of Leeds city centre, will host both the padel and squash competitions at the UK Corporate Games, which take place from 25-28 July.
One company that has participated in the Games since 2018 – and is hopeful of winning a first ever padel medal – is Safran, major manufacturers of aircraft equipment.
Sylvie Darrieumerlou, Commercial Manager at Safran, will lead the company padel team in Leeds, having already promoted the sport heavily to employees at its 13 sites across the UK.
Having discovered padel on holiday in Portugal two years ago and started playing at Padel4all in Swindon, Sylvie organised a ladies-only padel coaching session for female Safran staff with The Padel School and Femme Open UK, as well as mixed training sessions and match play at Rocket Padel (see below) and Surge in Bristol.
Sylvie plays once a week with a group of women who have qualified for the LTA National Finals twice in a row, played in the iPadel Finals and represented Wiltshire at the UK Padel County Championships.
Safran’s UK Corporate Games organising committee, along with Jon Morrison and Ines Merouani, has organised eight pairs to enter the Games padel competition in mixed, men’s and ladies’ categories. The padel competition in Leeds will be organised by Rocket Padel’s ebullient Head of Padel, Roxy Keshavarz.
Sylvie told The Padel Paper: “We have several sites in the UK with around 3000 employees and we are hoping that after the 2024 Corporate Games, all sites and more employees will want to join the padel revolution!
“Taking part in the Games for Safran means team bonding across 13 different sites and regions in the UK, 12 different product departments and many different functions within the group.
“The UK Corporate Games are a fantastic event to encourage team building, sport and healthy living. We are thrilled to enter a Safran padel team, made up of people from many of our departments; engineering, commercial, IT, purchasing, manufacturing and customer services, to name just a few.”
