PARIS. Le Palais des Congrès de Paris is located at the intersection of the Olympic venues in Paris.
During the Games, the congress building houses the international press, in front of which teams and the most famous athletes are brought before the games and sometimes after them as well.
The stars of the biggest individual sports of the Games appear as part of their country’s team. Not as individuals.
Because of this, one of the planned press conferences draws attention right after the opening weekend of the Olympics.
A small opportunity in a big framework
The press center’s La Seine conference room has 300 seats. A moment earlier, about a hundred journalists had been downstairs listening to the news of the brightest names in American athletics. Now it’s easy to count ten journalists from the front row and another mokoma from the back.
An elderly man walks with the accreditation around his neck from behind the curtain to the stage and begins.
– Ladies and gentlemen, Fares Ferjanithe man says and states after a few seconds:
– Let’s give applause.
Journalists sitting in the front row start clapping enthusiastically. Some stand up and shout short slogans. Although the signatory does not speak Arabic, it is easy to conclude from the nature of the occasion that the shouts are encouraging.
27-year-old Ferjani arrives on the stage a little flushed and walks to sit at the long table placed in the middle of the stage.
Ferjani is a Tunisian fencer who won the Olympic silver in the fence a day earlier. For Tunisia, which has participated in the Summer Olympics since 1960, Ferjani’s medal is only the 16th in history.
Before Ferjan, only a female swordsman Inès Boubakri had achieved a medal, bronze, in Olympic fencing. This happened in foil at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.
Even though the medal is of rare quality, the shouts and applause seem endearing and distressing at the same time. Ferjani, sitting in front of the journalists with a silver medal around her neck, seems to be embarrassed herself.
Sensational silver
Fencing is one of the nine sports that have always been on the Olympic program, i.e. since 1896. There have been 235 gold medals, of which Italy, France and Hungary have grabbed 134 each.
When Tunisia participated in the Summer Olympics for the first time in 1960, there were four male fencers in the team of 42 athletes. None of them made it past the group stage. The next time the Tunisians were seen was in the five-ring race in Atlanta in 1996.
Instead, in the 1960s, Tunisians went crazy for athletics, especially endurance running.
– Almost everyone my age wanted to be Mohammed GammoudiFerjan’s father sitting in the stands Salah Ferjani refers to Gammoud, who won four Olympic medals between 1964 and 1972.
Finns remember Gammoud best from the 1972 Munich Olympics, where the Tunisian and Lasse Virén crashed at 10,000 meters. Despite his fall, Virén won the tenth gold and later defeated Gammoud in the final straight of the 5,000m.
Four years earlier, Gammoudi had catapulted himself into the hearts of Tunisians when he claimed the first Olympic gold in the country’s history by winning the 5,000 meters in Mexico on October 17, 1968.
– The next day I wanted to go running with my friends like Gammoudi, but it was unbearably hot outside. The local fencing hall was the only one that kept its doors open, Salah Ferjani recalls.
Chance led Ferjan to the path he and his descendants have followed for 56 years. After his long competitive career, Salah Ferjani ended up being the first African to be a fencing judge at the international top level. He is the oldest member of the International Council of Judges, whose term has already lasted 24 years.
Salah’s three sons, Mohammed, Ahmed and Fares, are all multiple African champions. Mohamed has followed in his father’s footsteps and has been a judge in, for example, the foil Olympic final in London 2012.
However, Fares Ferjani grew up to be the most competitively successful fencer in the family, whose junior success led to a contact from New York in 2017.
Ferjani traveled from Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, to Manhattan, where a fencing coach Yuri Gelman teaches the top of the sport at St. John’s University.
In Paris, Ferjani became the fourth fencer that Gelman has coached to an Olympic medal between 2008 and 2024.
Despite the seven-year coaching relationship, Ferjani reached Olympic silver in Paris, although before the Paris Games his best achievement at the World Cup level was eighth place in 2018.
Olympic gold would have been one of the all-time surprises in a highly competitive sport. Father describes silver as sensational.
– I have always known that Fares is capable of this. Thanks for this goes to his other father, Salah Ferjani says, referring to Gelman.
The most important thing is to be a good person
The star of the event signs the praises directed at his coach.
– I have always been taught that I can only be good in the fencing ring if I am a good person in everyday life. The fact that Juri shared this idea was a huge thing for me, Fares Ferjani commented on his move to the United States and under Gelman.
At the one-man press conference, Ferjani talks non-stop about his coach. The combination for athlete-coach cooperation is not the most traditional of all.
Gelman is a Jew born in Ukraine, while Ferjani is a Muslim born in Tunisia. Like many Muslims, Ferjani is also asked about his view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
– I feel that it is not my job to comment on this. I am Tunisian, Ferjani politely acknowledges the British journalist’s question.
However, Ferjan’s Olympic medal did not come completely out of the blue – at least not for him.
In 2022, Ferjani couldn’t make it to the United States due to visa problems, but after they were resolved, he made a splash at the World Championships at the end of 2023. Although Ferjani lost in the opening round to the number one in the world rankings with a dubious referee’s decision, the match convinced him that the direction was right.
At the beginning of the year, Ferjani finished second in the international GP race. However, success was followed by defeats in the early rounds of the following tournaments.
– I wanted to win too much. Fencing is a momentum sport: you have to be technically ready and be focused and present. The losses taught me to be calm and made me realize that good things happen one at a time.
The effect on young people?
At the Paris Olympics, Ferjani climbed towards her dream literally one point at a time. Among other things, he won two matches with the last decisive point, 15–14.
In the historic final, Ferjani proved to be better with a score of 15–11 Oh Sang-uk. He became the first South Korean to win an Olympic gold medal.
Ferjani feels that she was not yet ready to achieve Olympic gold. He describes that growing as a person is still in progress.
– After difficult years, it has been an honor that I have received recognition as an athlete. Most of all, however, I want to see my family. I want to show my medal to my grandmother and mother and see their expressions, says Ferjani.
– At the Los Angeles Olympics (2028), everything is possible. There is still room for growth.
A thousand enthusiasts
Spokesperson for the Tunisian Olympic Committee Slaheddine Boudhinan according to Tunisia, with a population of 12 million, there are about a thousand fencing enthusiasts.
– In Tunisian Olympic sports, Gammoudi was the first big Olympic name, says Boudhina.
In Ferjan’s case, the age of 27 is not an obstacle that he cannot achieve Olympic medals for a long time.
– Fares belongs to a generation that can bring success to Tunisia for a long time to come, says Boudhina.
The Olympic Games in Paris were the second best in Tunisia’s history. The country achieved a streak of medals at the Games: one gold, one silver and one bronze. He was the only athlete at the Paris Games to have his own, personal press conference.