Budapest (AFP)

The money of a "fighter": At 25, the Parisian Pauline Ranvier went for Friday her first medal in a major championship at the World-2019 in Budapest, second on a podium with the best foil-makers of the past decade.

At the award ceremony, Pauline Ranvier found herself alongside Russia's Inna Deriglazova, now three-time world champion (2015, 2017, 2019) and reigning Olympic champion (2016), and Italy's Elisa di Francisca, world champion (2010) and Olympic champion (2012) and Arianna Errigo, double world champion (2013, 2014).

What give even more brilliance to this silver medal, the second consecutive in a world championship for a French, after that of Ysaora Thibus last year in China in Wuxi, and the third ranking podium if l 'we add the bronze of Thibus in 2017 in Leipzig (Germany).

"I turned, and I realized that around me, there were two Olympic champions, and a multiple world champion, it was incredible," commented Ranvier after his final.

"I'm proud to be on a podium with champions like that, I think the way is long, but little by little, I grapple," she added with a formula to define her fencing: "at risk, daring, who can play tricks on me and generous".

A style that can allow him in a good day to pass the rounds, like his podium in World Cup in Gdansk (Poland) in February 2017, already a second place.

But that sometimes also prevents him from chaining the competitions, like this rather dull season, with a 33rd place before coming to Budapest.

- Risk in control and measurement -

"I take risks, but I try to control and measure, find how to manage them: try to take risks, without giving too many gifts," she says, pointing out that in the semi-finals, meeting at during which she took "a lot of fun", she had risked more than in the final against Deriglazova.

"She has one thing, she is going to make a lot of mistakes, but she is able at one point to listen and do things," adds her coach since she was in the senior team of France, Emeric Clos, praising its efficiency when everything goes.

"My mental strength, I think I'm a real fighter, and I never loose anything until I get to the end," she says.

"Usante in training and always thoroughly" smiles Clos, Ranvier has been working for almost two years with a dancer at Insep. "It helps me get the perfect control of my body, in the sense that it improves the small defects that prevent to go further", explains the now vice-champion of the world of foil.

"She works on my belly and foot sensations, how I feel when I feel good and when things go wrong, to try to get a better posture."

As a management student in Paris, she progressed in the French youth teams under the orders of the fencing master Lionel Plumenail, assistant national coach since autumn 2017, at Creps in Aix-en-Provence.

His medal comes to mitigate the performance of Ysaora Thibus, eliminated in the round of 16. A charge of revenge for Guadeloupe and her teammates from Sunday, then Monday by teams, where they will target the gold that France has not won since 1951.

The disappointment was even greater for Yannick Borel, eliminated in the quarterfinals with the sword and who advanced to Budapest with a title of world champion to defend. The swordsmen will also be entered by teams Sunday and Monday, with valuable points to look for in the race for Olympic qualification.

© 2019 AFP