STADE DE FRANCE — As the ball tumbled out of the Saint-Denis sky, it seemed destined to reach the hands of one man: French rugby superstar Antoine Dupont.
In a thrilling rugby sevens final against holders Fiji, Dupont scored two tries and teed up another to clinch his country’s first gold of Paris 2024. But the man nicknamed “The Gifted” also cemented himself in the eyes of many as the sport’s best player — and possibly the greatest of all time.
“It’s always a pleasure to hear things like that, but I don’t spend a lot of time focusing on it,” Dupont, 27, told NBC News when asked about these accolades after the game. “I think now I will just enjoy my holidays,” he added with a laugh. “I am still young and I have a lot of work to do.”
After an unprecedented opening ceremony, this was the sporting moment that set these Games alight. The atmosphere inside the Stade de France descended into such delirium — fans chanting “Le Marseillais” interspersed with DJs pumping out acerbic electro — that at times it hurt the ear drums.
Dupont, a stocky 5-foot, 9-inch, 190-pound slab of genius, started on the bench, ready to come into the game as an impact substitute. Unlike rugby union, the far slower, 15-person version of the game that lasts 80 minutes, rugby sevens is over in just 14 minutes.
The field is the same size; there’s just far more space for the players to run into. And run they do.
France had started nervously, conceding a try to Fiji in less than 90 seconds, Selesitino Ravutaumada effortlessly cutting through their lines. But when Dupont came on at halftime, he quickly bent the game to his will. Every time he received the ball the decibels somehow became even more clamorous, as if the crowd was both charging and charged by the electricity of their talisman.
Straight from the halftime restart, the ball fell to him — his first touch — and in an instant he had covered 20 yards and was skipping round the veteran Fijian captain Jerry Tuwai before darting 40 more and offloading to Aaron Grandidier Nkanang for the score.
Dupont would take two slightly less dazzling tries himself, by which time the arena had caved into joyful madness.
“He’s why we came here,” said Jerome Faffe, 50, dressed in a France jersey and tricolor wig. “He’s fantastic, magnificent… how else can I say it?”
Dupont has long been considered by many the world’s best, and indeed won the Men’s 15s World Player of the Year in 2021. Now he’s being compared to soccer’s GOAT, Lionel Messi.
“Closest thing to Messi rugby has seen,” the Harlequins Podcast, which discussed the English rugby team of the same name, posted on X. “Simply does what he wants, whenever he wants.”
By leading his comrades to gold-medal glory, Dupont reaches a high point in a career that is perhaps only half done. He is better known for playing the longer-form rugby union as a “scrum half,” a small, often scrappy player who gets the ball out of the scrum and passes it to a more talented teammate.
But Dupont has flair, pace, and most crucially heaps of nous and brains. He has quickly become the most crucial player for France and his domestic league side, Toulouse, earning him a host of personal and team accolades few others can match.
Last year, however, he made the announcement that he would skip the Six Nations (a prolific annual tournament between France, Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland and Italy) and temporarily switch to the sevens version of the game ahead of the Olympics.
It was a shocking move, not only because these two variations of the sport require different skill sets, but because Dupont was effectively departing, albeit briefly, as his team’s star man.
After the exhilarating highs of Saturday night, he did not seem so sure about his return date.
“I don’t know yet,” he told reporters. “I will enjoy this moment and then we’ll see.”
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