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17 | O akville B eaver | T hursday,A ugust 26,2021 insidehalton.com Whatever sport floats your boat, from archery to Zumba, and even sailing, as of Aug. 28, you'll have a new venue for trying and buying sport- ing equipment. That's when France-based retailer Decath- lon opens the doors to its latest 65,000-square-foot mega-store in Vaughan. "We're a go-to sports hub to help people get and stay active," says Jaylone Lee,ChiefMarketing Officer at Decathlon Canada. Decathlon's highly interac- tive stores offer clothing and equipment for over 65 different sports,with testing areas such as putting greens, climbing walls, basketball courts and even a patch of acrylic ice for trying out the skates. Visitors can also sign up for classes in yoga, dance, strength training and spinning, among others, at the gymnasium-sized in-store teaching and learning area. Or they can take part in workshops on bike mainte- nance, skate sharpening and ski waxing, among others."We real- ly want this to be a fun and im- mersive experience," says Lee. Since its launch in 1976, Decathlon has grown to be the world's largest sporting goods retailer with more than 1,600 stores in 57 countries as well as a strong online presence. The company's first Canadian store launched in Quebec in April 2018. The Vaughan store marks the ninth store to open in the past three years and joins the other locations currently serving the Greater Toronto and Ham- ilton areas, including a store in Burlington and a pop-up store in Brampton. Since the beginning, says Lee, Decathlon has focused on meeting the needs of everyone from beginners to profession- al athletes in a wide range of sports by offering an unparal- leled array of high-quality prod- ucts at cut-rate prices. The company achieves that goal by designing, manufactur- ing and extensively testing fully 95 per cent of its own products. Its state-of-the-art research and development centre churns out approximately 2,800 new proto- types yearly. "We're constantly innovating to make prices ac- cessible," says Lee. She offers the example of a day hiking backpack that started out at a price point of $20. "By incor- porating an innovative folding technique for the fabric, we were able to cut the number of stitches used to manufacture that backpack from 21 to 8," says Lee. The result: the back- pack costs just $5 today. Also notable is Decathlon's strong eco-focus. The com- pany's wide-reaching efforts include using recycled or sus- tainable materials in products, as well as setting measurable goals to reduce CO2 emissions -- it aims to cut energy and air conditioning consumption by 75 per cent, for example, and re- duce CO2 emissions by 40 per cent per product sold. As Lee points out, "we only have one playground," and that's reason enough to try to preserve the planet we play on. "Ultimately, our goal is to make the pleasure and benefits of sports accessible to as many people as possible," says Lee. "We think Canada is the ideal audience for our products be- cause there are so many sports lovers." What's more, Lee says, although the pandemic has turned the world upside down, it has also given people a little more time to focus on making their lives better. "People were saying, 'I'm stuck at home, I'm going to take an online yoga class or start bik- ing'," Lee explains. "I think for many people the pandemic fu- elled a change toward a health- ier lifestyle. That's good for us, as a sporting goods retailer, but it's also good for people general- ly, because I think once you've adopted a healthier lifestyle, you're far less likely to go back to bad habits." SPONSORED DECATHLON The 65,000-square-foot hub for sports gear in Vaughan features teaching and testing areas including a patch of acrylic ice for trying out skates Contributed This content was funded and approved by the advertiser DECATHLON OPENS INTERACTIVE SPORTING GOODS MEGA STORE