Catherine Poletti in Latin America

In a long personal blog post on LinkedIn Catherine shares her experience visiting Latin America as part of the UTMB World Series. The post is in French, with an English version below, from which I am quoting here:

Some trips make you see the world differently. And then some make you see your own world differently.

These four weeks across Latin America, from Paraty (Brazil) to Quito (Ecuador), through Bariloche (Argentina), Valdivia (Chile), and the Copper Canyon (Chihuahua, Mexico), gave me way more than breathtaking landscapes. They rekindled that deep emotion that makes me come alive and gives real meaning to what we do.

Catherine goes very personal here, and while LinkedIn is sort of a weird place for this to be shared it’s also nice that it’s not a corporate press announcement, but rather a personal message and reflection. She goes in quite detail in sharing what these races, now part of the World Series are doing in their respective communities. And while there can be lots of snark to be thrown at Ironman’s intention in this sport, it’s good to remember that some of the group’s ambitions might come from a place to generally want to connect the world and support people in far away places. We often throw this phrase around “someone is playing four dimensional chess”, but in this case I feel like the Polettis have a global vision for the sport that most observers don’t consider when throwing criticism¹ at their business model and their ever growing expansion strategy.

1. I am not suggesting the least that it’s not worth keeping an eye on their plans and staying on their toes. They are the biggest player in our sport, they need folks to keep them honest.