The Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation supported the inaugural What Gravity Challenge on August 5, taking part in a training session that brought professional athletes together with young members of the Monaco Athletics Club ahead of the event. Built entirely around the high jump, the challenge gave children the chance to work alongside elite athletes rather than simply watch them compete, turning the discipline into something they could try for themselves.
The event was founded by Mutaz Barshim, the Olympic high jump champion who serves as a Foundation Ambassador, and was organised by the Federation Monegasque d'Athletisme. Having a champion of Barshim's standing behind the initiative gave the young participants direct access to the kind of technique and experience usually reserved for international competition, delivered instead in a setting built specifically around encouragement rather than pressure.
Barshim was joined by fellow Foundation Ambassadors Antoine Zeghdar and Kevin Crovetto, alongside Foundation General Secretary Gareth Wittstock, giving the training session a level of support that matched the scale of what the young athletes were being asked to attempt. For the Monaco Athletics Club members taking part, the chance to train directly alongside professionals of that calibre made the session as much about exposure to elite sport as about the high jump itself.
The initiative reflects the Foundation's broader mission of using sport to educate, inspire and empower young people, with organisers pointing to the confidence, respect, teamwork and resilience that come from learning a new skill in a supportive atmosphere. For a first edition, the What Gravity Challenge set out to prove that elite sport and youth development do not have to sit apart, pairing an Olympic champion with a club of young athletes discovering the high jump for the first time.