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‘Embrace the pressure’: Antoine Dupont reflects on France’s shock result
By Finn Morton
Antoine Dupont gave a brief but meaningful assessment of France’s opening game 12-all draw with the USA on Wednesday, saying they need to “embrace this pressure” of playing in front of 80,000 fans at Stade de France.
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Dupont, 27, is the biggest name in rugby sevens at the Paris Olympic Games after making the switch over from the 15-a-side game. The Frenchman was brilliant during his first season on the SVNS Series, taking home the Rookie of the Year honour in Madrid.
France hadn’t won a Cup Final on the Series until Dupont joined the team. Les Bleus Sevens finished third in Dupont’s debut event in Vancouver before taking out the title in Los Angeles one week later, and later the overall Series crown in the Spanish capital.
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With fans and players genuinely believing that France can take out gold or at least finish on the podium at their home Olympic Games, there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that. First up, that hype seemed to get to the sevens side against the USA.
In front of a World Cup-like crowd, Jordan Sepho opened the scoring in the fourth minute before the USA hit back through Lucas Lacamp. Rayan Rebbadj gave France the lead again during the second half but the Americans had an answer for that, too.
12-all is how the scoreboard read at full-time. It wasn’t a convincing start by France who also have Uruguay and Fiji to contend with in Pool C.
“It was a huge atmosphere. For us, it’s not common for us to play in this kind of stadium,” Dupont said on the Olympics broadcast, as seen on Stan Sport in Australia.
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“We have to embrace this atmosphere, to embrace this pressure to have a better game.”
Dupont opened his try-scoring account at the Olympics in France’s 19-12 win over Uruguay in their second and final game on day one.
25-year-old Antoine Zeghdar ran down the left touchline to open the scoring early on, and while Uruguay managed to strike back, it’s often inevitable on the rugby field that Dupont has a say.
The former World Rugby 15s Player of the Year showed some brute strength and had just enough pace to score behind the posts. As you can imagine, Stade de France erupted with a deafening cheer that maybe hasn’t been heard in sevens before.
France went on to win, but Dupont’s comments after that USA match remain true: “It’s always a lot of emotion when we play there with our supporters.
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“It’s important to deal with that and to be better even with the pressure.”
France take on Fiji in one of the early games on day two. The Fijians have looked significantly better than what they did on the SVNS Series this season after recording massive wins over Uruguay and the USA.
Fiji’s two wins were actually the second and third biggest winning margins out of any team on the opening day, so Antoine Dupont and co will have their work cut out of them as they look to avoid potentially missing the quarter-finals.
