Who are the French faces of the Games?

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Who are the French faces of the Games?

In a wide and varied field, rugby legend Antoine Dupont has made an early case to be the French face of the Paris Games.

The 15-a-side captain and former world player of the year is a very big deal in his home country.

And the clever halfback has delivered on the hype in the first two days of competition at Stade de France.

He helped the hosts avoid disaster by scraping into the quarter-finals before delighting 69,000 delirious fans with a dominant quarter-final display against Argentina.

With one man in the sin-bin and his side narrowly ahead Dupont took over, controlling possession then fooling the Argentines with a ****** that allowed him to score untouched, triggering wild scenes.

But once the men’s sevens finishes, a day after Friday night’s opening ceremony, who will fly the flag for the host nation?

Literally, that is a simple answer.

Seven-time Olympic discus thrower, 45-year-old Melina Robert-Michon and swimmer Florent Manaudou will serve in that role when the ceremony floats down the River Seine on Friday.

French athletes voted the pair in.

Now at his fourth Games, Manaudou won a shock gold as a 21-year-old in the London 2012 50m freestyle then silver in the next two Games.

At 33 he is again the country’s figurehead in the pool as he chases a fourth successive medal in the splash and dash event that also features *********** feel-good story Cam McEvoy.

The French flag should be secure in the clutches of the broad-shouldered freestyler’s huge hands.

But the swimmer’s wingspan has nothing on 20-year-old basketball phenomenon Victor Wembanyama, who romped to the NBA’s rookie of the year honours in May.

He and veteran Rudy Gobert headline a French basketball team – second in Tokyo – that’s struggled in warm-up games but at their best should compete for a medal.

Leon Marchand, coached by Michael Phelps’ former trainer, is another French swimmer with high hopes.

Judo pair Clarisse Agbegnenou (two Olympic titles) and Teddy Riner (three gold, two bronze) have dominated their arenas, with Riner able to make judo history if he can secure a record-breaking fifth individual Olympic medal in Paris.

France has a 17-year-old table tennis star in Felix Lebrun, ranked No.5 in the world, while the only honour missing from mountain biker Pauline Ferrand-Prevot’s resume is an Olympic medal.

The men’s soccer team is managed by Thierry Henry and captained by Alexandre Lacazette.

And over in Tahiti there is Vahine Fierro, the big-wave surfing local who captured hearts and dropped jaws when she mastered a pumping Teahupo’o swell to win this year’s Tahiti Pro.

France finished eighth in the gold tally in Tokyo three years ago with 10 golds but is on course for its best Olympics since 1900, when it hosted the Games for the first time and topped the table with 27 golds.

That would see the hosts almost triple their gold medal tally from the Tokyo Olympics and fulfil President Emmanuel Macron’s target of a top-five finish on the overall medals table, according to a forecast by Nielsen’s Gracenote.

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