Erwann Lucien Édouard Le Péchoux (born 13 January 1982) is a French left-handed foil fencer. Le Péchoux is a five-time team European champion and four-time team world champion. A five-time Olympian, Le Péchoux is a 2016 team Olympic silver medalist and 2021 team Olympic champion. Le Péchoux competed in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and 2012 London Olympic Games, the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, and the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Biography Erwann Le Péchoux has three younger brothers, the eldest of whom, Hugo, is also a fencer and competes for the Cercle d'Escrime de Meyreuil in the Bouches-du-Rhône department.
He is married to Tunisian foil fencer Inès Boubakri, the bronze medallist in the women's individual foil at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and Tunisia's flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His mother-in-law is Henda Zaouali, a former Tunisian international fencer who represented Tunisia at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, competing in both the individual foil and individual épée events. As Tunisian law prohibited Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men until September 2017, Le Péchoux converted to Islam in order to marry Boubakri.
A left-handed fencer, he is nicknamed "Petit Homme" ("Little Man").
Career
Le Péchoux took up fencing at the age of seven at the club in Gardanne. He later joined Escrime Pays d'Aix in Aix-en-Provence and was selected for the French senior national foil team in 2000, where he trained under masters Clos and Boidin. After winning the silver medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, he emerged as one of France's leading foil fencers in 2003. That year he won the individual title at the French Championships and helped France capture the team gold medal at the European Championships in Bourges, alongside Jean-Noël Ferrari, Antoine Mercier and Terence Joubert.
He represented France at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, finishing fifth in the team foil event with Loïc Attely, Jean-Noël Ferrari and Brice Guyart, and thirteenth in the individual foil after being eliminated in the round of 16 by Italy's Simone Vanni.
In 2005 he won the overall Fencing World Cup title and claimed his first World team championship at the World Championships in Leipzig, together with Nicolas Beaudan, Brice Guyart and Victor Sintès, beginning a period of sustained success for the French team. Together with Loïc Attely, Nicolas Beaudan and Marcel Marcilloux, he successfully defended the world title at the 2006 World Championships in Turin, while also winning his second French individual championship.
In 2007 he secured a third consecutive World team title at the World Championships in Saint Petersburg with Nicolas Beaudan, Brice Guyart and Marcel Marcilloux. During the same season he also won individual bronze medals at both the European Championships and the French Championships.
He won his third French individual title in 2008. At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing he competed only in the individual foil event, as the men's team foil competition was not included in the Olympic programme. He reached the quarter-finals before narrowly losing 10–9 to Italy's Salvatore Sanzo.
In 2009 he earned the bronze medal at the French Championships. The following year he completed a domestic double, winning both the individual and team titles with Escrime Pays d'Aix.
He repeated the feat in 2011, when he also won team silver medals at the World Championships in Catania and the European Championships in Sheffield.
At the 2012 European Championships in Legnano he won a second consecutive European team silver medal. Competing at his third Olympic Games, in London, he finished ninth in the individual foil after losing to South Korea's Choi Byung-chul in the round of 16, and eighth in the team foil event alongside Victor Sintès, Marcel Marcilloux and Enzo Lefort. The following year he won the team bronze medal at the World Championships in Budapest.
In 2014 he captured his fourth World team title at the World Championships in Kazan with Enzo Lefort, Julien Mertine and Vincent Simon, helping France regain the title after a seven-year interval. The same quartet also won the team gold medal at the European Championships in Strasbourg, where Le Péchoux added an individual bronze medal. In 2015 he retained the European team title alongside Jérémy Cadot, Enzo Lefort and Julien Mertine.
At the 2016 European Championships in Toruń he won the silver medal in the individual event, losing the final to Russia's Timur Safin. He represented France at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he won the silver medal in the team foil event with Jérémy Cadot, Enzo Lefort and Jean-Paul Tony Helissey. In the individual competition he was eliminated in the round of 16 by American Gerek Meinhardt, placing fourteenth overall.
At the 2017 European Championships in Tbilisi he won another team title with Jérémy Cadot, Julien Mertine and Enzo Lefort. Later that year, at the World Championships in Leipzig, he was defeated in the opening round of the individual competition by Japan's Kyosuke Matsuyama before helping France secure the bronze medal in the team event.
In 2019 he claimed his fourth European team title at the European Championships in Düsseldorf and added a team silver medal at the World Championships in Budapest.
At the 2020 Summer Olympics, postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Le Péchoux won the gold medal in the men's team foil event with Enzo Lefort, Julien Mertine and Maxime Pauty. France defeated the ROC team 45–28 in the final, making him an Olympic champion at his fifth and final Olympic appearance.
Coaching career
After retiring from competition following the Tokyo Olympics, Le Péchoux was appointed coach of the Japanese men's national foil team in 2021, joining the coaching staff headed by fellow Frenchman Franck Boidin. Under his guidance, Japan won the team title at the 2023 World Championships in Milan, the nation's first world championship in the men's team foil event.
At the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, he coached Japan to its first-ever Olympic title in the men's team foil event, defeating Italy 45–36 in the final.
Medal record Olympic Games YearLocationEventPosition2016 Rio de Janeiro, BrazilTeam men's foil2nd2021 Tokyo, JapanTeam men's foil1st
World Championship YearLocationEventPosition2005 Leipzig, GermanyTeam men's foil1st2006 Turin, ItalyTeam men's foil1st2007 St. Petersburg, RussiaTeam men's foil1st2011 Catania, ItalyTeam men's foil2nd2013 Budapest, HungaryTeam men's foil3rd2014 Kazan, RussiaTeam men's foil1st2017 Leipzig, GermanyTeam men's foil3rd2019 Budapest, HungaryTeam men's foil2nd
European Championship YearLocationEventPosition2003 Brouges, FranceTeam men's foil1st2007 Ghent, BelgiumIndividual men's foil3rd2011 Sheffield, United KingdomTeam men's foil2nd2012 Legnano, ItalyTeam men's foil2nd2014 Strasbourg, FranceIndividual men's foil3rd2014 Strasbourg, FranceTeam men's foil1st2015 Montreux, SwitzerlandTeam men's foil1st2016 Toruń, PolandIndividual men's foil2nd2017 Tbilisi, GeorgiaTeam men's foil1st2019 Düsseldorf, GermanyTeam men's foil1st
Grand Prix DateLocationEventPosition16 May 2003 Espinho, PortugalIndividual men's foil1st21 January 2005 Paris, FranceIndividual men's foil2nd18 March 2005 Cairo, EgyptIndividual men's foil2nd24 June 2005 Havana, CubaIndividual men's foil1st25 May 2007 Cairo, EgyptIndividual men's foil1st10 June 2007 Havana, CubaIndividual men's foil3rd25 January 2008 Paris, FranceIndividual men's foil3rd2 May 2008 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual men's foil2nd1 May 2009 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual men's foil1st9 May 2011 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual men's foil1st3 March 2012 Venice, ItalyIndividual men's foil1st15 May 2015 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual men's foil3rd19 May 2017 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual men's foil3rd
World Cup DateLocationEventPosition25 March 2005 St. Petersburg, RussiaIndividual men's foil1st2 October 2006 St. Petersburg, RussiaIndividual men's foil3rd13 January 2007 Copenhagen, DenmarkIndividual men's foil1st23 March 2007 Venice, ItalyIndividual men's foil1st15 June 2007 Margarita Island, VenezuelaIndividual men's foil1st5 January 2008 Copenhagen, DenmarkIndividual men's foil3rd1 March 2008 Bonn, GermanyIndividual men's foil1st29 May 2008 Montreal, CanadaIndividual men's foil1st31 January 2009 A Coruña, SpainIndividual men's foil2nd6 February 2010 A Coruña, SpainIndividual men's foil3rd28 January 2011 Paris, FranceIndividual men's foil1st17 February 2012 A Coruña, SpainIndividual men's foil2nd26 April 2013 Seoul, South KoreaIndividual men's foil2nd5 February 2016 Bonn, GermanyIndividual men's foil3rd11 November 2016 Tokyo, JapanIndividual men's foil3rd11 October 2017 Tokyo, JapanIndividual men's foil1st1 March 2019 Copenhagen, DenmarkIndividual men's foil2nd3 March 2019 St. Petersburg, RussiaIndividual men's foil3rd
References
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