Paris has waited a century for the Olympic Games to return; it may take that long for rugby to witness another player like Antoine Dupont too.
France’s chief orchestrator has it all: vision, pin-point ambidextrous kicking, speed of execution, evasive runs and a destructive physique, all of which have helped him dictate matches at will for club and country.
He captained Les Bleus to their first Six Nations title in more than a decade in 2022, the year after being named the world’s best men’s player, and habitually leads his long-term club side Toulouse to national and continental success.
So at the Stade de France on day one of the Games, if all goes to plan in the qualifying rounds and barring any misfortune, the mercurial scrum-half will try to add Olympic gold to what’s already a well-stocked trophy cabinet. Men’s sevens has even been moved forward in the schedules in a bid to give the hosts a golden lift-off. No pressure then.
It’s an ambitious short-term switch that, if successful, will definitively set him apart from his contemporary peers.
When he first announced his Olympic ambitions, just weeks had passed since France’s premature exit from the 2023 World Cup on home soil, losing to eventual champions South Africa by a solitary point in the quarter-finals.
Dupont, who was the face of a tournament in which the hosts were widely tipped to finally win their maiden title, had been rushed back from a cheekbone fracture sustained in the group stage. Nine months on, he is back at the Stade de France for redemption.
“What I like is putting myself in danger, trying a new experience with an immense objective,” he told Bros Stories a few weeks later. “The fact that it’s in Paris makes it even better, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Even by his own lofty standards, the adaptation to sevens has been startlingly seamless. After a handful of training sessions, he helped the team take bronze in the Vancouver leg of the World SVNS Series in February, before winning the Los Angeles leg a week later. It was Les Bleus’ first tournament win since the 2005 Paris event.
He returned to the Ssevens setup at the end of May (winning his second continental title with Toulouse in the meantime) for the series finals in Madrid, in which France won their first-ever year-end title. Dupont proved decisive – notably scoring a match-saving solo try against Great Britain, just as France were heading for an early exit.
“Sevens hasn’t picked Dupont, it’s Dupont who’s picking up sevens”, explains Thierry Janeczek, who coached France between 1996 and 2010. A former XVs international, Janeczek was introduced to sevens when he was called up to the Barbarians team to play in Hong Kong in 1986. He was instantly won over.
“It’s a sport that was made for me, I could push myself and use the agility and skills I’d acquired from other sports. I wasn’t as interested in physical confrontation – my strong point was running into wide open spaces.” In the following decades, he went on to spearhead its development across various roles within French rugby.
Janeczek is pleased to see the “spectacular” tournament given a privileged platform as the Olympic curtain-raiser. “It’s faster, easier to understand, and less ‘mysterious’ than XVs for those who don’t follow rugby”. He explains that the Toulouse man was already showing an interest in the abridged format when he was part of the national youth set-up.” It made sense that he would fit in Sevens, and he had the desire to come. Straight away, he was up to the task.”
It should be said that the French team is far from a one-man show. Head coach Jérôme Daret can also count on the likes of prolific wingers Stephen Parez and Nelson Epée, as well as captain Paulin Riva, to provide a high-quality supporting cast for Dupont.
Les Bleus won’t have an easy start, having been drawn in Group C alongside double gold medallists Fiji – but Janeczek is confident: “They’re aiming to win the competition, I’d say we have high hopes.” Having a player who, at just 27, is already being considered among the sport’s all-time greats does help in that regard.”
Beyond the pitch, Dupont is not afraid to put his high profile to use – back in June, he was the cover star of Têtu, the main LGBTQ+ magazine in France, to speak out against homophobia in rugby.
Last year, he criticised far-right magazine Valeurs Actuelles for co-opting rugby’s image for political purposes. The exposure that comes with fronting France’s sevens title tilt will be nothing out of the ordinary.
The hope for the organisers is that Dupont and his teammates will get the fortnight started on a high for the hosts, and ignite local fervour for the Games.
