“IThis is the holy grail of sports. ” Antoine Dupont declared on the French team’s social media channel last week. As he begins his quest for Olympic gold, the Toulouse scrum-half swapped this year’s Six Nations for the World Rugby Sevens Series, a tournament for which he has been preparing since the turn of the year.
The 2021 World Footballer of the Year will make his highly-anticipated Rugby Sevens debut in Vancouver on Friday night and is scheduled to play in the Los Angeles leg of the tour next weekend. France will begin play against the United States at BC Field before taking on Australia and Samoa in other Group B games.
There is no doubt that while Dupont may not be familiar with the Lite format, his unparalleled sense of invention, timing and awareness will be a game-changing asset for the team. Despite this, the scrum-half says he is still adapting to the demands of the sevens game: “It’s still the same sport, but the principles of the game are different and the physical characteristics are different. I’m still learning.”
His first try came in early January, when he stopped by the team’s training camp. The meeting focused on kickoff procedures, but was preceded by Dupont’s induction ceremony, which included 10 burpees in the middle of the court, surrounded by his new teammates.
“He has all the skills he needs to perform,” head coach Jerome Durrett said afterward. “The real challenge is helping him adapt to the workload and different physical demands of rugby sevens.”
Playing six games over a long weekend is indeed uncharted territory for a rookie, but Durrett is confident. “He’s stepping out of his comfort zone, but he wants to jump right in.”
After a month back in Toulouse, Dupont returned to the team’s national training center in the Bois de Vincennes last week. After a week at the complex, where French medal hopes in other sports also train, the 14-man squad flew to Vancouver to continue preparations.
Dupont is expected to return to the team every month for the next two weeks before playing in the final game of the season in Madrid at the end of May. Whether he plays before then remains to be seen, with Toulouse’s Champions League commitments taking priority.
France sevens captain Paulin Riva, an Oche academy graduate who will carry the Olympic torch in his native Gers region in May, is confident the code switch will be a success. However, he also realized that DuPont would be subject to increasing attention and pressure. “He wanted to be successful in everything he did,” Riva said. “Considering he won’t be with us for long, he knows he needs to perform immediately.”
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Toulon winger Gabin Villière, who made 43 appearances for the club before joining Fabien Galthié in 2020, said in a recent interview Olympic noon “It’s hard to give advice to a player like him. I would just tell him that he needs to make sure he plays the ball correctly. You can’t just get rid of the ball. It will cost you dearly.”
The DuPonts have been steadily improving after failing to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, reaching the quarterfinal stage in each of the last two editions of the event and finishing in the top five for the first time last season, especially after their previous performance in Vancouver ‘s appearance. Dupont’s arrival could propel them to their first title since 2005.
Looking ahead, the Olympics will provide the 27-year-old with a second chance to win on home soil. This will be Dupont’s return to the Stade de France for the first time since the World Cup defeat to South Africa, and he seems destined to take the tournament by storm.
The scrum-half won’t be the host nation’s only poster boy this time around, especially if Kylian Mbappe and Victor Wembunyama end up taking part. However, with the Rugby Sevens Championship kicking off on July 24, two days before the opening ceremony, he will be the first star to take the field.
While the temporary switch to sevens will see club and country frustrated by his absence, the move does have wider support from fans. A poll last week by radio station RTL found 78 per cent of rugby fans supported his decision, although 52 per cent also believed it had exacerbated France’s post-World Cup slump.
Regardless, leading France to a gold medal is sure to propel Dupont to a new level of prominence on the national stage, partially make up for last fall’s disappointment and write a new chapter in his own legend.
