Antoine Dupont in the race to the 2024 Paris Olympics

The Paris Olympics (OG) are making headlines. France’s 15-year-old rugby captain and 2021 World Player of the Year, Antoine Dupont, will join the rugby sevens team – the Olympic discipline – with the aim of preparing for the 2024 Olympic Games. Goes Toulouse Scrum ” To merge “In January, “The group that will prepare for the Olympic Games”On Wednesday, November 15, the French Rugby Federation (FFR) announced to Agence France-Presse, confirming information from… the team.

If his participation is only supposed to be formalized on Monday, 250 days before the start of the Paris Olympics – and he will have to earn his place – the Frenchman, who saw his dreams of a world title crushed by a dispiriting defeat at the Olympics in Paris. In the quarter-final against South Africa (28-29), he faces a new challenge on his twenty-seventh birthday.

“Digestion [de la défaite] It has begun and must be evacuated. And what could be better than a club and new goals to get back on track? »Antoine Dupont announced, Saturday, November 11, via the Canal + microphone, on the sidelines of his resumption with the Stade Toulouse against Perpignan (43-34) in the top 14. In the club, but also in the jersey of the team from France to VII.

“We couldn’t dream of a better gondola head.”

After several months of speculation, in which half of the French “It goes without saying that he wants to participate in the Olympics. Therefore, we agreed with Toulousan Stadium and France VII on this principle. Now the only decision is up to Antoine, The President of the FFR, Florian Grill, confirmed in the teamOctober. If he decides, he will compete in the Olympics, and if he does, we can’t dream of a better finish for the French Football Federation, Rugby Sevens and the Games. » The player decided, and the French Football Federation and his club agreed to allow him to compete in the Paris Games.

If his physical characteristics and playing style have everything that makes him shine in this fast-paced game of rugby that is the Olympic system, Antoine Dupont will have to integrate into a new group, learn this difference in his sport, and reconcile his club in Toulouse with the rallies. From the French rugby sevens team. In order to convince the general manager of the French rugby sevens team, Christophe Riegt, and coach Jerome Daret, to take him to the Olympics, he will have to ignore the upcoming Six Nations and prefer tournaments and tournaments with the sevens of France in February and March 2024. Thus, he will participate in the two stages of the World Circuit (Rugby Series The Global Seven) in Vancouver (Canada) on February 23 and 24, and in Los Angeles on March 3 and 4, according to a press release. the team.

French and international rugby star Antoine Dupont will bolster the sevens squad, which is currently ranked fourth in the world rankings. Like his Blues counterpart, Kylian Mbappe, who has also submitted his Olympic bid, the half-half must be the key figure for the team seeking an Olympic medal.

Whoever makes participating in the Olympic Games one of the goals of his sporting career will have the potential. If he will have to do specific physical preparation to switch to the “cousins” of rugby that he has been practicing for years, several recent examples have shown that it is possible to shine in both disciplines, such as the Frenchman Fermi Vakatawa, the South Africans Cheslin Colby or Kwaja Smith or the New Zealander Sonny Bill Williams. .

As for Toulouse Stadium, which seeks to retain the title of French champion at the end of the season, it has been preparing for many months to deprive it of the master of the game. “We are preparing to live half a season or a whole season without him.”noted in June Ugo Mola, coach of Pink City FC.