Dining with Emmanuel Macron, dancing with the cast of Moulin Rouge and modelling for Louis Vuitton - why Antoine Dupont is the DARLING of the 2024 Paris Olympics

Of the 573 French Olympians here in Paris, Emmanuel Macron invited Antoine Dupont to sit opposite him for lunch in the athlete’s village. The French president knows a photo opportunity when he sees one and who better to tuck into his bowl of watermelon with than the nation’s rugby darling.

In a country caught up in election riots and rows about E-coli pollution in the River Seine, Dupont offers a more reassuring picture. A natural-born winner. A role model who the locals describe as le gendre idéal. The perfect son-in-law.

He is one of the first faces you see on the Parisian advertising campaigns. The latest cover-star of Têtu magazine, which represents the LGBTQ community, claiming he would abandon a rugby match if he overheard homophobic abuse.

In 2022, he added his signature to a letter calling on the French electorate to reject Marine Le Pen. Unlike Kylian Mbappe at the European Football Championships in Germany, he did not shout from the rooftops during the recent election, but diplomatically encouraged the young electorate to go out and cast their vote.

Dupont is a reluctant headline-maker yet he embodies many of the values that France wishes to see; delivering brilliantly stable performances for a typically unstable country. 

Ask the average Parisian for their French stars of these games and his name will be mentioned as often as Victor Wembanyama (the NBA’s rookie basketballer of the year), Leon Marchand, (the 22-year-old swimmer who recently broke Michael Phelps’ world record), and Teddy Riner (the five-time judo medallist).

He delivers his boldest statements on the rugby pitch. His performances for France and Toulouse over the last five years have cemented his status as rugby’s greatest XVs player - and now he is going for gold in the short form of the game.

His impact in sevens has been instantaneous. Having not won a title since 2005, France won two after Dupont joined the squad in January. Last week, they put the finishing touches on their preparations by spending a day with the glamorous cast of Moulin Rouge. It could easily be interpreted as a PR stunt, but dance has been a key component of their training schedule for months.

Laure Bontaz, a cabaret performer and Cancan choreographer, is a member of the backroom team and has been working with the players on plyometric movement, rhythm and synchronisation. A reminder that sport and art can operate side-by-side.

Having mastered most elements of the XVs game as a scrum-half, Dupont took up English lessons, enabling him to communicate more clearly with referees. On the eve of his Olympic debut, he explained in fluent English to Mail Sport how his connection to the sevens team extends back to his childhood living in the Midi-Pyrénées.

‘Paulin Riva, our captain, played with my older brother, Clement, when they were young. It’s very cool to play with him now.’ And his early Olympic memories? ‘Probably Laure Manaudou winning in Athens in 2004. I was young… she was young too. That was my first memory, watching at my parents’ house.’

Clement was a talented half-back who was less bulky than his younger sibling. Dupont is only 5ft9in but he weighs in at 13st5lb and, according to French defence coach Shaun Edwards, ‘looks like an amateur body builder when he takes his top off.’

The family’s eyes will be on the Stade de France on Wednesday afternoon when France begin their campaign against Team USA. The Americans have arrived en masse at Charles de Gaulle airport and their rugby team will be coached by the Englishman, Mike Friday.

‘Dupont’s unreal,’ says Friday, who is plotting the first major upset of these games. ‘Is he the best player on the world sevens circuit right now? No, but he’s certainly one of the most influential. He doesn’t control a sevens game yet but he comes up with moments. If he decided that sevens was his game, would he be the best player within 18 months? Absolutely.

‘He’s got mates in the French team from his school days so he immediately feels at ease. They don’t treat him like a God. Those guys allow him to be the Antoine of old, rather than the megastar he has become. The confidence he breathes into them is dangerous.

‘In attack, he fits in seamlessly. He doesn’t make any big mistakes, does the simple link play, picks his two on ones and looks for a second touch. In defence, he’s not afraid to defend space, which is often the biggest problem for XVs players. 

'And most importantly, there’s his physical conditioning. This guy is in his prime. He’s so built around his shoulders and his neck, which must help when he’s jackalling against those massive South Africans in XVs. He’s got a neck like a cow!’

The tailors at Louis Vuitton have been measuring up Dupont’s collar. He has a catalogue of brand endorsements, specially flown in for a photoshoot on the Parisian rooftops with Zinedine Zidane before last year’s Rugby World Cup.

Yet back at the Olympic village, he is just a part of the gang. His team-mates jokingly raised their hands up to ask him questions when he held a Q&A with the French media. Just like the rest of the squad, they surrounded him in the middle of the pitch when he performed the traditional initiation of 10 burpees before his debut.

Naturally, he took it all in his stride. Conditioning is no issue for the 27-year-old, who has easily transitioned to the game which has an appetite for pace over power. Argentina’s Marcos Moneta has clocked top speed of 25.1 miles per hour on the sevens circuit which, for reference, is 0.9mph faster than Louis Rees-Zammit and 2.2mph slower than Usain Bolt on his 100-metre record run.

Dupont will not be the fastest player at these games but his rugby brain is the sharpest of his generation. The average ball-in-play time is seven-and-a-half minutes in a 14-minute sevens match - compared to 35 minutes in an 80-minute XVs match – and Dupont has the capacity to cope with the squeezed recovery time.

‘There are a lot more big spaces on a sevens pitch and it comes down to spatial identification,’ says Friday. ‘You can get eaten up if you get isolated. They do so much work in XVs to make sure they don’t lose the ball on the floor, but in sevens you can’t roll three times and fight for your ball presentation. 

'You have one movement, otherwise it’s a straight penalty. Dupont is one of the fittest players in XVs and his physical conditioning is one of the reasons he’s excelled.’

Macron and the rest of France will be watching. Dupont will be back on the pitch where he suffered the darkest night of his career last year, crashing out in the quarter-final of a home World Cup.

It broke the nation’s heart but here he has a chance to heal some old wounds. These Olympics will not officially be declared open until Friday night, yet one of its biggest stars is already primed to take centre stage.

Marcos Moneta – Argentina

Having clocked a top speed of 25.1 miles per hour on the pitch, the Argentinian is one of the fastest and most exciting players on the circuit. He is making his comeback from a broken ankle and his fitness could be key to Argentina’s quest for gold.

Hugo Keenan – Ireland

While Terry Kennedy is Ireland’s most established all-court sevens player, plenty of eyes will be on the performance of the rookie Keenan. A stalwart of Andy Farrell’s Ireland team in the Six Nations, the sleight full-back is the latest XVs player trying his hand at sevens.

Jerry Tuwai – Fiji

The 35-year-old veteran is one of the all-time greats of the sevens game. A high-tempo playmaker who has been brought back into the squad to add his magical touch to the Pacific Islander’s free-flowing, offloading style. Listen out for their pitch-perfect singing if they win!

Aaron Grandidier – France

Born and raised in London, Grandidier once trained with the England sevens team under Simon Amor. He has a French mother and left St Mary’s University to play on the wing for Brive, where he was picked up by the sevens team. He will switch back to XVs next season to join Top 14 side Pau.