Ysaora Thibus

Ysaora Thibus is studying at the ESCP Business School. In 2013, she received the Bernard Destremau Prize from the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, which rewards a high-level athlete who combines competition and higher education.[3]

Thibus took up fencing at the age of 7 in Guadeloupe. At 17, she moved to France to train with the French national youth team in Aix-en-Provence, joining the senior training team in Paris a year later.[4]

Thibus competed in the 2012 London Olympic Games.[5] In 2016, after winning her first team bronze medal at the Rio Worlds in April,[6] she participated in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.

She reached her first individual world podium in 2017 in Leipzig with a third place, then in 2018 in Wuxi where she lost 12–15 in the final to Alice Volpi.[7]

In 2021, she won a silver medal in the team foil event with Anita Blaze, Astrid Guyart and Pauline Ranvier at the Tokyo Olympic Games,[8] losing in the final to the Russian team.[9] Beaten in the second round in individual, she said she was "psychologically exhausted" after the Olympic competition and stopped training for four months.[10]

Thibus founded the EssentiElle program for women athletes, which aims to amplify their voices within the world of athletics.[11]

Thibus and American foil fencer Race Imboden met at a party after the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games and began dating shortly afterward. The couple became engaged at Le Pigalle, a hotel in Paris, after the Tokyo Olympic Games.[12]

Thibus was suspended on February 8, 2024, after testing positive for ostarine, a banned substance.[13] She said that her positive doping test was due to an exchange of “bodily fluids” with Imboden.[13] On May 21, 2024, she sent out the news that she was cleared from doping charges and was back on track towards competing in the Paris Olympic Games.[14] Official confirmation of this decision is pending.

• Knight of the National Order of Merit (France) on 8 September 2021.[49]

• Ysaora Thibus at the International Fencing Federation
• Ysaora Thibus at the European Fencing Confederation
• Ysaora Thibus at Olympics.com
• Ysaora Thibus at Olympedia
• Ysaora Thibus at the French Olympic and Sports Committee (archived) (in French)