Together, they did well. While no Frenchman had reached the quarter-finals individually on Friday at the World Cup fencing event in Heidenheim (Germany), the Blues won the team gold medal on Saturday.
The reigning world champions first made a success of their entry into the competition by beating Portugal, Kazakhstan, then China. In the semi-finals, the Blues trembled against their executioner of the Games, Japan. Beaten in the quarterfinals by a small point, in Tokyo, in 2021, the French team reversed the scenario by winning this time 36-35.
In the absence of world number 1 Yannick Borel (gold medalist with the Blues in Cairo last summer), the team composed of Romain Cannone, Alexandre Bardenet, Nelson Lopez-Pourtier, and Alex Fava, then mastered its final against Italy (45-38).
Note that in individual, the day before, the Olympic champion and world number 2 Romain Cannone had been eliminated in 16th by the Spaniard Yulen Pereira.