Yannick Borel

Yannick Borel
Personal information
Born	(1988-11-05) 5 November 1988 (age 36) Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe
Height	1.95 m (6 ft 5 in)
Weight	94 kg (207 lb)
Sport
Country	France
Weapon	Épée
Hand	right-handed
National coach	Hugues Obry
Club	Levallois Sporting Club
FIE ranking	current ranking
Medal record Men's épée Representing  France Olympic Games 2016 Rio de Janeiro Team 2024 Paris Individual World Championships 2011 Catania Team 2017 Leipzig Team 2018 Wuxi Individual 2019 Budapest Team 2022 Cairo Team 2012 Kyiv Team 2023 Milan Team European Games 2015 Baku Team European Championships 2011 Sheffield Team 2016 Toruń Individual 2016 Toruń Team 2017 Tbilisi Individual 2018 Novi Sad Individual 2022 Antalya Individual 2018 Novi Sad Team 2022 Antalya Team

Yannick Borel (born 5 November 1988) is a French right-handed épée fencer.^[1]

Borel is a two-time team European champion, four-time individual European champion, four-time team world champion, and 2018 individual world champion.

A three-time Olympian, Borel is a 2016 team Olympic champion.

Borel competed in the 2012 London Olympic Games, the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

In the 2024 Paris Olympics, Borel won the silver medal, losing to Koki Kano of Japan.^[2]

Borel was born in Guadeloupe, overseas France. When he had to choose an extracurricular activity at the age of ten, he hesitated between fencing and gwo ka, a genre of Guadeloupe folk music. He chose the former because the club was close to his school and several of his friends already fenced.^[3] Five-time Olympic medallist Laura Flessel, also from Guadeloupe, was also a major inspiration for him. He learnt épée under coaches Rudy Plicoste and Barbara Paulin.^{[citation needed]}

At the age of fifteen he was noticed by France's head coach Jérôme Roussat, who offered him a spot at the national junior training centre in Reims, Metropolitan France. Borel's parents refused, because they wanted him to finish high school before focusing on sport.^[4] He was allowed to go after he obtained his baccalauréat in 2007 and began training with the best junior fencers alongside to his physical therapy studies.^[5] That year he was selected into the French national junior team that won a silver medal at the Junior European Championships in Prague.^[6] The next season, he earned a silver medal at the Herakled Cup in Budapest and won the Uhlmann Cup in Laupheim, two events of the Junior World Cup. He also became junior national champion.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009 Borel gave up his physical therapy studies, which were too demanding for a high-performance athlete, and switched to physical education at INSEP, where he trained with the senior national team.^[5] He took part in the 2009 Summer Universiade, but did not earn any medal. Two quarter-finals finishes in the 2010–11 season had him selected into the senior national team for the first time. At the 2011 European Championships in Sheffield he reached the table of 16, defeating 2010 World silver medallist and teammate Gauthier Grumier along the way, but he yielded to Germany's Jörg Fiedler and finished 11th. In the team event France saw off Switzerland, Ukraine and finally Hungary to earn a gold medal.^[7]

After this result Borel transferred from the Cercle d'Escrime de Châlons to the Levallois Sporting Club, where he joined teammates Ulrich Robeiri and Gauthier Grumier.^[8] At the 2011 World Championships in Catania Borel reached again the table of 16, before being stopped by Korea's Park Kyoung-doo. In the team event France cruised to the quarter-finals, then defeated Germany, South Korea and Hungary to post their sixth World title in a row.^[9] Borel finished the season World No.14, a career best as of 2015^[update].

In the 2011–12 season Borel climbed his first World Cup podium with a bronze medal in Legnano. He qualified to the 2012 Summer Olympics as one of the two top-ranked Europeans.^[10] As men's team épée did not feature on the Olympic programme, World Championships were held separately in April. France defeated Russia, then prevailed by a single hit over Italy in the semi-finals. They failed to establish a new record of seven straight World titles after a surprise 37–44 defeat against the United States and had to settle for silver.^[11] For his Olympic début Borel defeated Ukraine's Dmytro Karyuchenko and Switzerland's Fabian Kauter. In the quarter-finals he met Norway's Bartosz Piasecki and took an early 6–2 lead, but failed to press his advantage and was finally defeated 14–15 by Piasecki, who eventually won the silver medal.^[12]

After the Games Borel was dropped from the national team and had two dry seasons, although he was France's flagbearer at the 2013 University Games.^[13] He bounced back in the 2014–15 season with a silver medal at the Heidenheim World Cup.

He competed for France at the 2016 Olympics, where he was part of the French team that won the team gold medal.^[13] Because of this, he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour.^[13]

He won the gold medal in the men's épée event at the 2022 European Fencing Championships held in Antalya, Turkey.^[14]

Year	Location	Event	Position
2016	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	Team Men's Épée	1st[15]
2024	Paris, France	Individual Men's Épée	2nd

Year	Location	Event	Position
2011	Catania, Italy	Team Men's Épée	1st[16]
2012	Kyiv, Ukraine	Team Men's Épée	2nd[17]
2017	Leipzig, Germany	Team Men's Épée	1st[18]
2018	Wuxi, China	Individual Men's Épée	1st[19]
2019	Budapest, Hungary	Team Men's Épée	1st[20]
2022	Cairo, Egypt	Team Men's Épée	1st[21]
2023	Milan, Italy	Team Men's Épée	2nd[22]

Year	Location	Event	Position
2011	Sheffield, United Kingdom	Team Men's Épée	1st[23]
2016	Toruń, Poland	Individual Men's Épée	1st[24]
2016	Toruń, Poland	Team Men's Épée	1st[25]
2017	Tbilisi, Georgia	Individual Men's Épée	1st[26]
2018	Novi Sad, Serbia	Individual Men's Épée	1st[27]
2018	Novi Sad, Serbia	Team Men's Épée	2nd[28]
2022	Antalya, Turkey	Individual Men's Épée	1st[29]
2022	Antalya, Turkey	Team Men's Épée	3rd[30]

Date	Location	Event	Position
2015-05-22	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	Individual Men's Épée	1st[31]
2015-12-04	Doha, Qatar	Individual Men's Épée	3rd[32]
2018-05-25	Cali, Colombia	Individual Men's Épée	1st[33]
2019-01-25	Doha, Qatar	Individual Men's Épée	1st[34]
2020-03-06	Budapest, Hungary	Individual Men's Épée	2nd[35]
2022-01-28	Doha, Qatar	Individual Men's Épée	1st[36]
2022-04-29	Cairo, Egypt	Individual Men's Épée	1st[37]
2023-01-28	Doha, Qatar	Individual Men's Épée	3rd[38]
2024-03-09	Budapest, Hungary	Individual Men's Épée	1st[39]

Date	Location	Event	Position
2012-01-27	Legnano, Italy	Individual Men's Épée	3rd[40]
2015-01-22	Heidenheim, Germany	Individual Men's Épée	2nd[41]
2016-11-18	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Individual Men's Épée	3rd[42]
2017-01-26	Heidenheim, Germany	Individual Men's Épée	2nd[43]
2017-02-17	Vancouver, Canada	Individual Men's Épée	3rd[44]
2017-05-12	Paris, France	Individual Men's Épée	2nd[45]
2018-02-16	Vancouver, Canada	Individual Men's Épée	3rd[46]
2022-12-09	Vancouver, Canada	Individual Men's Épée	2nd[47]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yannick Borel.

• Yannick Borel at the International Fencing Federation
• Yannick Borel at the European Fencing Confederation
• Yannick Borel at Olympedia
• Yannick Borel at Olympics.com
• Yannick Borel at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics
• Yannick Borel at Équipe de France (in French)
• Yannick Borel at Équipe de France Olympique (archived) (in French)