Enzo Lefort is one of the best foil fencers in the world, and a favorite for the gold medal in Paris. But he is also an athlete committed to society.
At 32, Enzo Lefort is one of the leaders of the French fencing team. Olympic team champion in foil, he also won the world championships in 2019 and 2022 individually, and finished third in the last world competition in 2023. The Guadeloupean, born in Guyana, arrives in Paris with the ambition of winning a new Olympic medal, and particularly the individual title, one of the only ones still missing from his list of achievements.
This could happen in the first days of the competition, with the foil scheduled for July 28, and launch the French team on a positive dynamic. Traditionally, fencing is indeed a discipline that provides medals for the Blues. With 44 Olympic titles and 123 medals, France is indeed the second most decorated nation, just behind Italy, which has 49 titles and 130 medals.
But Enzo Lefort has not focused his entire professional life project around his flagship sport. In parallel with his training at INSEP, the foil fencer has in fact continued his studies, and graduated from his physiotherapy school. A safety net in a sport that receives little media coverage outside of the Olympic events. Enzo Lefort also has many passions, particularly photography, which takes up a good part of his free time.
The 2022 world champion is particularly invested in opening up his sport to more diversity and inclusion. “In the collective imagination, it is a sport reserved for a certain social elite,” explains Enzo Lefort. “Through a series of photos of my teammates, I wanted to demonstrate that this was no longer the case at all. The French fencing team is representative of French society, with its ethnic, geographical and social diversity.”
The Frenchman also demonstrates this commitment through writing, with the publication of two mangas, telling his story, always with the idea of opening up his discipline by making it known to as many people as possible through different media.