Ysaora Jennifer Thibus (born 22 August 1991) is a French right-handed foil fencer, 2022 individual world champion, three-time Olympian, and 2020 team Olympic silver medalist.
Career 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.
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.
Thibus competed in the 2012 London Olympic Games. In 2016, after winning her first team bronze medal at the Rio Worlds in April, 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.
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, losing in the final to the Russian team. Beaten in the second round in individual, she said she was "psychologically exhausted" after the Olympic competition and stopped training for four months.
In February 2024, Thibus was issued with a provisional suspension after testing positive for ostarine at the Challenge International de Paris event in January. Following due process, in May 2024 the International Fencing Federation deemed that Thibus bore "no fault or negligence" for the anti-doping rule violation. They accepted her explanation that the source of the ostarine was through kissing her partner Race Imboden whom she was unaware had been using the ostarine. Therefore, other than disqualification of results from the event in Paris, Thibus received no sanction. An appeal by WADA to the decision was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in July 2025.
At the Paris Olympics in 2024, Thibus lost her first match in the women's individual foil and was a member of the French team in the team foil event where they placed fifth.
Personal life Thibus founded the EssentiElle program for women athletes, which aims to amplify their voices within the world of athletics.
From around 2021 Thibus was in a long-term relationship and engaged to American foil fencer Race Imboden, however as of 2025 they appear to have split up.
Medal record Olympic Games YearLocationEventPosition2021 Tokyo, JapanTeam Women's Foil2nd
World Championship YearLocationEventPosition2013 Budapest, HungaryTeam Women's Foil2nd2014 Kazan, RussiaTeam Women's Foil3rd2015 Moscow, RussiaTeam Women's Foil3rd2016 Rio de Janeiro, BrazilTeam Women's Foil3rd2017 Leipzig, GermanyIndividual Women's Foil3rd2018 Wuxi, ChinaIndividual Women's Foil2nd2018 Wuxi, ChinaTeam Women's Foil3rd2022 Cairo, EgyptIndividual Women's Foil1st
European Championship YearLocationEventPosition2012 Legnano, ItalyTeam Women's Foil2nd2013 Zagreb, CroatiaIndividual Women's Foil3rd2013 Zagreb, CroatiaTeam Women's Foil2nd2014 Strasbourg, FranceTeam Women's Foil3rd2015 Montreux, SwitzerlandTeam Women's Foil3rd2016 Toruń, PolandTeam Women's Foil3rd2017 Tbilisi, GeorgiaIndividual Women's Foil3rd2018 Novi Sad, SerbiaTeam Women's Foil3rd2019 Düsseldorf, GermanyIndividual Women's Foil3rd2019 Düsseldorf, GermanyTeam Women's Foil2nd
Grand Prix DateLocationEventPosition2015-03-13 Havana, CubaIndividual Women's Foil3rd2016-06-03 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual Women's Foil3rd2017-05-19 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual Women's Foil3rd2020-02-07 Turin, ItalyIndividual Women's Foil1st2021-03-26 Doha, QatarIndividual Women's Foil3rd
World Cup DateLocationEventPosition2013-02-08 Budapest, HungaryIndividual Women's Foil3rd2013-03-01 St. Petersburg, RussiaIndividual Women's Foil3rd2014-05-02 Shanghai, ChinaIndividual Women's Foil3rd2015-01-16 Gdańsk, PolandIndividual Women's Foil3rd2015-10-16 Cancún, MexicoIndividual Women's Foil1st2017-01-13 Algier, AlgeriaIndividual Women's Foil1st2019-01-25 Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, FranceIndividual Women's Foil3rd2019-05-03 Tauberbischofsheim, GermanyIndividual Women's Foil3rd2019-11-22 Cairo, EgyptIndividual Women's Foil3rd2020-01-10 Katowice, PolandIndividual Women's Foil3rd
Awards Knight of the National Order of Merit (France) on 8 September 2021.
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