Antoine Dupont, from World Cup tears to Olympic gold, nine months of inexorable conquest

Having won the Olympic title with the French rugby sevens team on Saturday, Antoine Dupont ended a successful season on the Stade de France pitch where, nine months earlier, he had just experienced the worst failure of his career.

He left the Stade de France pitch on October 15, 2023, his eyes haggard, bruised by a quarter-final elimination from the World Cup rugby in France. Despite winning a race against time to return from a facial fracturehe had buried his tears in his mother’s arms. Just over nine months later, Saturday, July 27, 2024, he left that same lawn with a smile on his lips, the sparkling eye of someone who has just realized their childhood dream, a big gold medal around his neck.

With his new group of friends, he enjoyed the moment. A moment frozen in time, in an improbable communion with a stadium he has visited so often.

After the trauma of the World Cup, it was necessary to find motivation again. Of course, there was the Top 14 and Stade Toulousain, but “Toto” found a way to keep the flame alive: Paris 2024 Olympic Games in rugby 7s. The bet is crazy, but the voices unite: he can do it.

Supported by its president and his club, the decision is made mid-November. A plan is staggered: he will play two tournaments in the winter with France 7, will miss the Six Nations with the French XV, and will make a detour via the Seven final in Madrid, before embarking on the preparation for the Olympic Games. All interspersed with a return with the Toulouse team in the Top 14 as well as in the Champions Cup.

At the club until February 3, he played 12 matches and won 10. Ideal for getting his head back in order. In the middle comes January and his first internship at 7 in Marcoussis. The first steps are publicized and very quickly, the craze grows as the Games approach.

The usual Six Nations Tournament in February is being replaced by the 7s events in Vancouver and Los Angeles. His beginnings are timid but convincing.. The following, full of promisesIn North America, Antoine Dupont brings something extra to a team that didn’t ask for so much. A bronze medal for Canada And a gold medal in the United States19 years after the last one. The ambition to conquer Gold in Paris is getting thicker.

The native of Lannemezan then returned to Ernest-Wallon and the Stadium de Toulouse. Within a team that walks on water, he now faces a new challenge: to conquer a sixth Champions Cup in the club’s history, on May 25. A few days after carrying the Olympic flamehe does what he knows how to do: shine. European champion for the second time in his career And man of the match at the end of a victory snatched in extra time against Leinster (31-22)Antoine Dupont confirms that he has indeed resumed his march forward.

A week later, the jack-of-all-trades of French rugby is in Madrid, on his way to an unexpected world title at the start of the yearThe Blues bring the world to its knees in the final of the Rugby Sevens World Series.

After a season of walking all over France, Toulouse and Dupont then reached the final against Bordeaux, to deliver a memorable thrashing to UBB at the Vélodrome on June 28, where he scored two tries and was named man of the match. He could then turn to his new objective: the summit of Mount Olympus. Which he climbs with humility and happiness.

Able to assume its new societal statushe takes the same position and confess the benefits of 7 on your mental health. A superstar of French sport, on the same level as Kylian Mbappé and Victor Wembanyama, Antoine Dupont continues to change dimensions and he has perhaps just given birth to, in nine months, you couldn’t make it up, his greatest legacy.