‘The Patrick Mahomes of rugby!” – Why Olympic gold would confirm Antoine Dupont as one of the greatest sports stars France has ever produced
France superstar Antoine Dupont.
Ahead of the Rugby World Cup last year a giant image of Antoine Dupont was beamed onto the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Then, like now, he was the poster boy heading into a global sporting event on French soil, the individual on whom the hopes of a nation rested.
First time round did not turn out so well, a broken cheekbone in a pool match he did not even need to play in, saw to that.
He returned, post-surgery, for the first match of real consequence wearing a thermo-moulded PVC mask and France were eliminated by South Africa.
For his team-mates it is a disappointment they will live with forever, but just 10 months on Dupont has another crack at sporting immortality.
Olympic challenge
Fresh from completing a Champions Cup-Top 14 trophy double with Toulouse, he spearheads the home challenge for Olympic glory in Rugby Sevens.
For those who see this as a consolation prize alongside the greatest prize available in rugby, a World Cup that France has never won, listen to Tom Mitchell.
Mitchell, captain of silver medal-winning Team GB at the 2016 Rio Olympics, sees the bigger picture.
“Dupont is a huge star in France, no question, a huge star of rugby,” he says. “But the Olympics reaches more people than rugby alone ever can.
“For me that’s part of the draw, the beauty, the glory of it. You have an opportunity to connect with people beyond your sport.
“You’re connecting with people globally who are associated with the Olympics, but particularly in your country; people who don’t necessarily follow your sport but will follow and support you in the Olympics.
“That’s a large reason why people pursue the dream and should he strike gold that will make Dupont, if he isn’t already, one of the greatest sports stars France has ever produced.”
You sense the scrum-half himself recognises this. He talks of the Olympics as “mythical, the holy grail of sport” and the upcoming event as a “highly motivating challenge”.
France has no shortage of headliners going into these Games, not least three-time reigning world champion swimmer Leon Marchand.
Marchand, 22, broke Michael Phelps’ last-standing world record in the 400m individual medley last summer and is expected to emerge from Paris with a fistful of gold.
But Dupont has an almost unique place in French hearts, even those broken by the country’s agonising quarter-final exit at the hands of the Springboks.
Like Kylian Mbappe he is both national skipper and talisman, the best in his business, a player who is rarely disappointed for long such is the brilliance he emits.
“It would have been really interesting, that Springboks quarter-final, had he not broken his cheek,” says Mike Friday head coach of the US sevens team who play France first on Wednesday. “He wasn’t 100 per cent in that game.
“At that level it’s only a little bit of hesitancy on decision making, do I go for that or do I worry about my cheek? He’d say he wasn’t worried about anything but you would be, that’s human nature.
“It was like Mbappe during the Euros in the games he played wearing a mask to protect his broken nose. He didn’t have the same impact.
“Dupont is as brave as they come, that is clear to see. He makes a massive difference to France in everything he does. He still went out and put his body on the line yet he probably shouldn’t even have been out there.”
Adapting
Long restored to full fitness the 27-year old’s influence on Sevens has stunned even the most seasoned observers.
“When he first come over we looked at him and said ‘he’s so unfit – for our game’,” recalls Phil Greening, ex-England star turned USA performance coach.
“Then he developed. Fair play, he really put the work in. Sevens is such a tough, physical game now where the detail is everything. Everyone is playing seven-up, there’s no space on the pitch like there used to be.
“It’s so many more contacts, a different pace, the high speed metres are through the roof. Your micro-skills have to be on point. It’s gone ridiculous really. Yet Dupont is killing it.”
Greening cites the reaction of Australian 15s great Michael Hooper when coming up short in his bid to make these Olympics.
“He was like ‘f*** me, I’ve got 100-odd caps but these boys are athletes! The detail, you’re so exposed, I’m out of my depth’,” says the former Gloucester and Wasps hooker. “He was so humble. I thought ‘fair play to you, mate’.”
That is the landscape in which Dupont now operates, when he is not bossing the 15s game.
France have never won an Olympic medal in men’s sevens but he has the nation believing. And why wouldn’t it when his first two tournaments brought bronze and gold medals and last month France beat Argentina in the final of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens.
“The benefit for our boys is they don’t know him that well,” adds Friday, with a cheeky grin and, one suspects, fingers firmly crossed.
“They follow rugby but they probably don’t hold Antoine in the aura all of us do. That’s probably an advantage for us.
“To them he’s just some bloke from 15s. They don’t have a deeper understanding that this bloke is the nuts! They don’t understand he’s the [Patrick] Mahomes of rugby.”
