PARIS: Superstar attacking link Antoine Dupont was once again omnipresent as his club Toulouse claimed a third top-14 finish and the Champions Cup on Friday. Now, however, his thoughts turn to this year’s Olympic Games.
Dupont, the poster boy for the French rugby team, was unplayable at times as the French rugby aristocrats cruised past Bordeaux-Begles 59-3 in Marseille, contributing to May’s Champions Cup success.
The 27-year-old scored two tries and scored less than a month before the men’s sevens final at the 2024 Olympic Games at the Stade de France.
Victory in Paris would be historic for Les Bleus, besting the women’s silver medal won in Tokyo three years ago.
“I have a week of vacation before I join the Olympic team,” Dupont told France Televisions after his victory.
“I will enjoy it, I will rest to get there with a fresh mind and I will be motivated to go again and win something else,” added the 2021 World Rugby Player of the Year.
Dupont’s peak seemed to be in early 2022.
He won Toulouse’s second double and lifted the Six Nations for France for the first time in over a decade.
It came just months after he was named World Rugby Player of the Year.
Dupont’s campaign with the 15-man side this season began with a heartbreaking Rugby World Cup quarter-final defeat to eventual winners South Africa.
He managed to put that aside and switched to the shorter form of the game in February and was like a duck to water on his sevens debut for Canada.
A week later, he helped Les Bleus claim their first success since 2005 with a win in Los Angeles.
The former Castres defender ended the season with another victory in Madrid.
The rookie of the year award came after appearing in just three of eight games this season.
His two tries in the Top 14 final gave him 11 club tries for the season, equalling his personal best from 2021.
“I think I have achieved much more than I could have dreamed of as a child,” Dupont told Canal+ after Bordeaux-Begles’ defeat.
“I need to realize this, but not enough to continue dreaming,” he added.
Dupont has become a symbol of the increasingly better condition of French rugby, and the national team and its clubs are flourishing.
Since the sport became professional in 1995, it has been plagued by conflicts between the French Rugby Federation (FFR) and influential clubs such as Dupont’s Toulouse.
However, his Olympic wish, which was born in the spring of 2022, was the fruit of the work done by the heads of FFR and Toulouse.
Dupont missed out on this year’s Six Nations and has been on a break with his club for part of the season, prioritising his duties with the sevens side.
“The amazing thing about what Antoine did was that we called on him sporadically throughout the season and every time he was with us, he was the player we could be there for in the most important moments,” Toulouse head coach Ugo Mola told reporters after the final.
“I remain convinced that very few athletes are capable of changing their sport. I think he can revolutionize the sport in the next few years.
“Maybe I’ll try rugby league too?” Mola added jokingly.