Fencing: five months before the Olympics, Hugues Obry resigns from his position as men's epee coach

Hugues Obry, after months of tension, presented his resignation from his position as general manager of men's epee on Thursday, exactly five months before the individual tournament of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the French Federation of Olympic Games told AFP. fencing (FFE), confirming information from the daily L'Equipe.

Having been off work for several weeks, the former swordsman, triple Olympic medalist, returned to Insep at the start of the week.

Following a heated debrief of the World Championships in Milan this summer, relations had remained tense for months between him and his three headliners, the Tokyo Olympic champion, Romain Cannone, Yannick Borel and Alexandre Bardenet, who had led a sling against him.

To the point that the first, who also became world champion in 2022, trained partly in his club in Saint-Maur, the other two in Levallois-Perret, in the Paris suburbs.

A “real break” appeared after the World Championships in Milan, according to a person close to the actors, despite a record of two medals, team silver and bronze for Romain Cannone.

Olympic team epee champion in 2004 as a fencer then in 2016 as coach of the French team, Obry, nicknamed “Napoleon” on his return to the head of the blue epeeists in 2021, saw himself accused of “moral harassment” by his athletes, according to his comments to the daily L’Equipe in the fall.

Men's epee is the third weapon to change general manager in less than a year after the ousting of Vincent Anstett, at the head of the sabers in May, then the departure of Lionel Plumenail, boss of women's foil, after the Worlds from Milan.

Beyond technical supervision, the president of the Federation Bruno Gares resigned, officially for “personal reasons”, in September against the backdrop of a general inspection mission carried out by the Ministry of Sports.