Rugby sevens was one of the flagship disciplines of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Rugby sevens has enjoyed new and growing popularity and exposure for some time now. Several months before the Olympic Games, where the discipline has been present since 2016, the enthusiasm was already palpable and the chances of French medals, important, for both men and women had given momentum to the discipline. This media appeal was also not unrelated to the presence among the Blues of the best rugby player in the world, namely Antoine Dupont.
His presence in the French rugby sevens team at the Vancouver and Los Angeles tournaments, while his teammates from the French XV rowed in the Six Nations Tournament, had given a media spotlight to this more confidential discipline. Especially since the French performed well by winning the tournament in Los Angeles and finishing third in Canada. And it is perhaps this enthusiasm which allowed the Blues to win the gold medal in Paris.
But beyond Antoine Dupont, there were other important players in this selection of the French VII. Jefferson-Lee Joseph is notably one of the young prospects who count. Born in Guadeloupe, the wing-back was trained as a “quinziste” (also a rugby union player) in Agen, in Lot-et-Garonne. He also chose his jersey number, 47, because of this department. However, the story of Jefferson-Lee Joseph is also linked to music.
He is in fact the son of Jeff Joseph, famous Guadeloupean singer of the group Gramacks. If his name is not necessarily well known in mainland France, Jeff Joseph, who died in 2011, was particularly popular in the West Indies. “When I go back to the West Indies, people talk to me again about my father, about what he did,” explains Jefferson-Lee Joseph. His father also collaborated with the New York funk group “Kool and The Gang” during his solo career.
If Jefferson-Lee Joseph is entirely focused on rugby sevens now, he hopes to return one day to fifteens. He is also still under contract with Agen. “I would like not to lose track and switch again soon, even if I know that there will be a time of adaptation, of course,” explains the player of the France team. An adaptation which could lead to a dream: one day joining the French XV, “the objective of every rugby player” according to him.
