Disappointing in the individual competition, the women's sabre and men's épée have a team defeat to make up for at the World Championships

The advantage of holding World Championships without any spectators, or a handful at most, is that there's no difference in the stands between a day of finals and the day dedicated to the preliminary rounds. In both cases, it's not the noise that's disturbing. In a Georgian incongruity, these Tbilisi World Championships were cut short on Tuesday in their tracks by a qualifying day placed there, without any meaning, for the women's sabre and men's épée team events. Since international fencing is no longer averse to inconsistency, this warm-up round didn't even concern everyone, since the French sabre athletes were exempt.

And it was perhaps not so bad for the world number ones, who had time to digest the failure of Monday's individual event to switch to preparing for this final stage of the season, this last effort for which they will be favorites for the title. With Sara Balzer, Sarah Noutcha and Toscane Tori present in the quarter-finals on Monday, the Blues had the opportunity to achieve an unprecedented group shot on the Georgian podium, but the trio failed at the gates of the last four, leaving behind a bitterness that had to be evacuated.

"We took our time ," assures Matthieu Gourdain, the general manager of the women's sabre team. "All three of us were able to achieve something bigger, so beyond the disappointment, it was mostly frustration. We did individual debriefs and a group debrief, we tried to define each person's current needs and plan for the future."

"I had to push them, we weren't serious at the beginning, we don't have the right to start like that."

The épée fencers had to negotiate the trap set by Great Britain, starting Tuesday in the preliminary phase. Recent European champions in the specialty in Genoa , Paul Allègre, Alexandre Bardenet, Gaétan Billa and Luidgi Midelton had no room for error against the British, two days after also having come through the individual event. Despite losing the first two relays (7-10), the Blues finally came out with a margin (45-31) and will use this small alert as a welcome reminder, while the Americans await them in the round of 16 to begin their quest for the podium.

Paul Allègre, left, and Luidgi Midelton at the Paris 2024 Games. (P. Lahalle/L'Équipe)

"I had to push them around, we weren't serious at the beginning, we don't have the right to start like that ," says Hervé Faget, general manager of the men's epee. "There are no more small teams, we know that the competition is enormous. If we don't take our opponents seriously, we can be knocked out straight away, we saw that with the Danes who eliminated the Czechs, Olympic bronze medalists. But we got through it and it was important to get back into it after the individual competition. We had to get back into it, when you fall off the horse you have to get back on straight away, not dwell on it. They were keen to get back on track, only three hours after the competition, they asked for a meeting, we reminded them of our values and our abilities. It's going to be tough, but we're prepared for the fight."