"Colin and I are a bit of a guy, a girl": the beautiful story of Marie Oheix and Colin Mottas after "Koh-Lanta"

This is the story of two candidates from

from two different seasons that participation in the show hosted by Denis Brogniart and the common passion for sport have brought together.

During "Koh-Lanta, the secret weapons" shot in the fall of 2020 in French Polynesia and broadcast in the spring of 2021 on TF1,

was the first to bear the brunt of the new mechanics of the adventure game.

At the end of the advice of the sixth day of filming, this passionate runner had been eliminated.

A year later, it was

to take part in "Koh-Lanta, the cursed totem" and to be released during the first council of the reunited tribe after 23 days.

Settled together in Switzerland, they agreed to tell us about their meeting and their projects.

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LE FIGARO.

- What do you remember from your respective experiences in “Koh-Lanta”?

It was a sick experience, an incredible adventure that gave me a lot of emotions.

It's a chance to have been able to participate.

It was a turning point in my life.

I have created real friendships with the other candidates and we see each other regularly, especially at events with participants from other seasons.

It's a small family.

I have the impression that this adventure brought me a lot afterwards.

I only had a week of filming, it was very short, I didn't have time to step out of my comfort zone.

I am an athlete, a competitor so I had this frustration of being eliminated so quickly.

But I experienced something crazy, I measure the privilege of having taken part in this show.

Today, when I see everything that "Koh-Lanta" has brought me, it's considerable.

I was able to surf the broadcast to seize great opportunities in the world of running that I have loved and practiced for a long time.

Concretely, what has changed in your life since your "Koh-Lanta"?

It brought us a little notoriety, especially on social networks.

Professionally, we are invited to events that allow us to live new experiences and meet new people.

The "Koh-Lanta" adventure leads to other adventures like this sand half-marathon that we have just done in Jordan.

I did five years of studies in tourism, events and communication, I put to good use today all that I could learn.

I focus on the editorial line of sport, running in particular, and travel.

Social networks are communication and marketing tools to give visibility to the events in which we participate.

We drain a whole community of people who are interested in it.

Before “Koh-Lanta”, I was already a digital manager, I worked on social networks for companies.

What I do now is in continuity, I bring my expertise for our own account.

"Mary took the first step..."

Colin Mottas

How was your meeting?

Colin and me, it's a bit

 !

(Laughs.)

I'll give you my version and she'll give you hers afterwards.

Marie saw me during the broadcast of my season of “Koh-Lanta” and she instantly fell in love with me!

(Laughs.) No, that's not true, just kidding.

On the other hand, she can't deny that she took the first step by writing to me on Instagram…

On a story where he was running, I thought he had a very nice stride…

Well, she told me that I had a very nice stride when I run.

Basically, she clearly flirted with me!

(Laughs.) We started talking without a second thought and we took advantage of his coming to Switzerland to see each other.

She invited me on a sporting mountaineering experience which had gone well and then we met again for a road trip in a van.

This trip marked the beginning of our relationship.

So my version… (Laughs.) I wasn't in flirt mode when I wrote to him the first time on Instagram since both of us were already in a relationship.

Our story is a bit of a coincidence, we fell in love with each other when we first met.

It fell on us unexpectedly, we were a little disturbed and we ended up ending our previous relationship.

After our road trip, Colin introduced me to Switzerland and we shared several trips and sporting challenges in Iceland and Jordan.

But we have wanted to remain relatively discreet about our relationship until now.

With Marie, we have the same centers of interest, we are driven by the same passions and we have many points of view in common.

This naturally brought us closer.

Who lives with whom today?

I shared a flat in Lausanne with Louana, who took part in the same season of “Koh-Lanta” as Colin.

Both of us wanted to make a fresh start and I wasn't with Colin yet.

So I have this accommodation in Lausanne but I spend most of my time in Friborg at Colin's with his roommates.

Marie has become our sixth roommate!

How do you envision the sequel?

We don't know how to live without being fully involved in our projects.

We have the will to continue together our travels, our sporting challenges and our different adventures.

We share the same work in the influence sector, we have complementary knowledge networks, in France and Switzerland.

We also have complementary areas of expertise, Colin is more in digital management and I in relational and communication.

Over the past two years, I have succeeded in building up a very interesting network.

We have a YouTube channel and we mainly express ourselves on Instagram.

I also have TikTok.

Each platform has its own dedicated and specific content.

On YouTube, we can offer more extensive and documented things.

On Instagram, we can share our adventures with our community by posting photos and videos in stories.

And it works.

Colin is skilled in the field of photography and video, he has a lot of material.

I give photography lessons to Marie and she is already very strong.

“Our desire to redo “Koh-Lanta” is real”

Mary Oheix

Do your social networks allow you to pay yourself?

Yes, it's been my full-time job since last June and Colin is part-time on it (he also has his own company, Kreatic, editor's note).

For the events, there is a support of the various expenses by the organizers and we receive commissions on sale.

Or, we have a remuneration.

What do you like about these sporting challenges where you go to the limit of your strength on sometimes complicated terrain?

We like to push our limits, to see how far our body is capable of going.

It gives a lot of emotions to go beyond the muscle pain to have, at the end, the satisfaction of having taken up the challenge.

In these moments, we are even more supportive and it's nice to share that with someone we love.

I would have had trouble doing this sand half-marathon without Marie.

It was my second sand half-marathon and I had two different adventures.

I had done Peru in 2019 and, this year, Jordan with Colin.

I didn't know how we were going to manage together 120 kilometers of stage in food self-sufficiency for four days.

We had 8-9 kilos to carry in our bags and we supported each other throughout the race.

I like the difficulty precisely, it is what motivates me.

I wouldn't see any interest in embarking on a challenge that was too simple.

We have known each other for seven months and we have had to sleep a third of the time in a tent or in a van, we are frequently stepping out of our comfort zone.

There is nothing better to test the strength of a couple.

Do you have the will to live together

Oh yeah… (Laughs.)

I think we would love each other as much as we would argue!

We would take each other's heads as much as we would support each other.

It's a social game, we're always hungry and I'd be afraid to eat it.

(Laughs.)

It would be a crazy adventure but we would be in real reality TV because we don't know how to pretend.

We are very spontaneous when we express ourselves, the production would enjoy it.

But the desire to redo a "Koh-Lanta" is real, I was too frustrated and I still have things to prove.