Nordic combined: Lubin Martin, top-level sport and higher education at the same time
A promising member of the French Nordic combined team, 18-year-oldLubin Martin also has a good head. After four years at the Lycée du Mont-Blanc in Passy (Haute-Savoie), the Haut-Savoyard passed his baccalauréat with flying colours last June.
For several years, the boy with two FESA Cup victories had already been thinking about what to do next. I asked myself a lot of questions about whether I should stop studying or stop doing sport,” he tells Nordic Magazine. At the start, my horizons were very broad and, little by little, I realised that I wanted to continue my studies. So I looked at what was possible and there weren’t many things I wanted to do.
In spite of everything, Lubin Martin did not give up and managed to find several interesting schools, with a rhythm that appealed to him. In other words, continuing to work all year round alongside sport, so as to have something to do alongside training and competitions,” explains the member of SC Villard-sur-Boëge. So I needed something off-line.
Accepted into the programme a few days after the baccalauréat results
At first, it was Sciences Po Paris that caught his eye. But a discussion with former Doubles biathlete Julie Baverel, who is taking the course, put him off: “She explained to me that it was quite hard because the facilities weren’t top-notch”, he recalls.
That’s when Lubin Martin came across the HEPTA programme, which stands for Hautes Etudes Pluridisciplinaires pour Top Athlètes. This is a multi-disciplinary diploma for top athletes awarded by ESSEC in partnership with CentraleSupélec, Sciences Po and INSEP.
“There was a webinar presenting this in November 2024. I was in Slovenia for a work placement, but I took part in the video and saw that it was right for me”, explains Lubin Martin. Although his Italian LV2 was a problem for a while, this was quickly put to one side after a discussion with Thierry Lardinoit, the director of the HEPTA bachelor programme.
“I applied for the course and was accepted just a few days after my baccalaureate results,” says the Montblanc native, who celebrates his nineteenth birthday on 28 November.
“For me, face-to-face training will represent around 15 days of the year”.
A university diploma that can be adapted, it can be completed in much more than three years. Personally, for example, I’m going to do the first year in two years, so at the very least I’m leaving for four years,” explains Lubin Martin. In the end, everything will depend on how I progress in sport and how the first year goes, but the teachers know our sporting constraints, which is clearly an advantage.
The pace of the course is completely à la carte. They want it to be 80% distance learning and 20% face-to-face,” says the Frenchman. For me, face-to-face training will represent around 15 days a year, during what they call an intensive course in April/May, when I’m off work”.
After starting his new academic year on 1 September on the ESSEC campus ,just hours after taking part in the Grand Prix d’été de Chaux-Neuve (Doubs), Lubin Martin began his lessons. “It ‘s great to see that top-level sport is compatible with higher education,” he concludes.
- Jested: Lubin Martin scores first international win
- Lubin Martin after his FESA Cup victory: “I can’t wait for the season to start”.
- Chaux-Neuve : Lubin Martin just outside the top 5 after the cross-country ski pursuit
- FESA Cup in Chaux-Neuve : Lubin Martin rounds off his weekend with a superb victory
- Lillehammer: Anaëlle Paris seventh in the Continental Cup, Tom Rochat, Maël Tyrode and Lubin Martin in the top 15
- Lake Placid: Lubin Martin and Lilian Tréand sixth in the team sprint at the Junior World Championships
- Lake Placid Junior World Championships: Romane Baud, Marion Droz-Vincent, Lilian Tréand and Lubin Martin fifth in the mixed competition won by Germany
- Romane Baud and Lubin Martin on the podium: all the results from the FESA Cup in Oberhof
- Tschagguns FESA Cup: Lubin Martin sixth in the first competition of the weekend
