Enzo Lefort: “Paris 2024 is the chance of a lifetime, of a generation”

French fencing star Enzo Lefort is aiming for his first individual Olympic medal at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

“It will be a great celebration of sport and my ambition is to win an individual gold medal and a team gold medal,” the double world champion in 2019 and 2022 told Olympic Channel in new documentary series “Athletes to Watch - Paris 2024."

In his episode, we go behind the scenes at the 32-year-old's training camp, to Basse-Terre in Guadeloupe where he is from, and on to Paris, the city where he hopes to achieve his biggest dreams.

What his episode now for free on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and on the official Olympics apps for mobile and connected TV devices.

Enzo Lefort: An exceptional athlete in the Guadeloupean tradition

Enzo Lefort grew up more than 6,000 km from Paris in Basse-Terre, the capital of Guadeloupe, an island in the Caribbean archipelagos.

He trained for more than ten years at the Basse-Terre Fencing Club, and found success in a sport that makes Guadeloupe shine internationally.

“We have been supplying the ranks of the French team with fencers for years!" he said with a smile.

Guadeloupean fencers such as Daniel Jérent , Sarah Daninthe , Yannick Borel are notable Olympic medalists.

But the best-known Guadeloupean Olympic champion is Laura Flessel-Colovic; a five-time Olympic medalist including two golds at the Olympic Games Atlanta 1996.

It was while watching The Wasp during her victorious individual epee final in Atlanta that Lefort fell under the spell of fencing.

Harry Lefort, his father father, confirmed this. “Seeing Laura Flessel in Atlanta, he said to me, 'I want to do that sport.' I didn't see fencing as a rich person's sport. There were children from all social categories, and so we gave him a chance."

In Guadeloupe, Lefort Junior progressed and improved, but at the age of 15, he decided to leave in search of better competition.

“It cost my parents a lot of money to send me to compete in [metropolitan] France, in Europe. I didn't necessarily have the ambition to join the French team. I wanted to continue fencing, but as a hobby."

But in 2006, during an international tournament, he was spotted by the national team coaches.

“The condition for me to go and train in mainland France was that I had to succeed in school. And, I succeeded. I got my diploma."

His dream of Olympic glory could begin.

Enzo Lefort: “Winning an Olympic gold medal: an indescribable feeling.”

Lefort will hope compete in his fourth Olympic Games in Paris.

For all athletes who are selected to be part of the French delegation next summer, the Olympic Games Paris 2024 will be a unique and special experience.

“Paris 2024 is the chance of a lifetime, of a generation. I would have the chance to compete in front of my wife, in front of my daughter, in front of my father, my mother, my sister, in front of all the French people. It will be a great sports festival," he said.

The fencer will aim for a first individual medal and the team title. Indeed, during Tokyo 2020, France won gold in the team foil event, a first since Jean-Noël Ferrari's heroics to win gold against the People's Republic of China in the Sydney 2000 final.

“I think winning an Olympic gold medal would be an indescribable feeling in your life. And sharing it with your teammates would be powerful. Because they are my teammates, but they are also my friends."

With age, Enzo Lefort has got to know himself better, an essential thing before an event as important as the Olympic Games at home.

“I like doing things different outside of fencing, it gives me a balance in my life. It helps me to know that in the moments when things aren't going too well in fencing, I have something else, I have other interests, things that I like to discover.

For Lefort, this outlet is photography.

The Frenchman has notably collaborated with L'Équipe Magazine, GQ and has notably released two photo books: Behind the mask illustrating diversity in fencing and Hors piste on the mysterious beauty of Tokyo in Japan.

What if the next one was the photographic testimony of his first individual Olympic gold medal?

As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.