Ysaora Thibus

Thibus at the French Fencing Championship 2013
Personal information
Nationality	French
Born	(1991-08-22)22 August 1991 (age 34) Les Abymes,Guadeloupe
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	56 kg (123 lb)
Fencing career
Sport	Fencing
Country	France
Weapon	Foil
Club	AS Bourg-la-Reine[1]
FIE ranking	current ranking
Medal record Women'sfoil Representing France Olympic Games 2020 Tokyo Team World Championships 2022 Cairo Individual 2013 Budapest Team 2018 Wuxi Individual 2023 Milan Team 2014 Kazan Team 2015 Moscow Team 2016 Rio de Janeiro Team 2017 Leipzig Individual 2018 Wuxi Team 2022 Cairo Team European Games 2023 Kraków–Małopolska Team European Championships 2012 Legnano Team 2013 Zagreb Team 2019 Düsseldorf Team 2022 Antalya Team 2023 Kraków Team 2013 Zagreb Individual 2014 Strasbourg Team 2015 Montreux Team 2016 Torún Team 2017 Tbilisi Individual 2018 Novi Sad Team 2019 Düsseldorf Individual 2022 Antalya Individual Universiade 2011 Shenzhen Team

Ysaora Jennifer Thibus (born 22 August 1991) is a French right-handedfoilfencer, 2022 individual world champion, three-timeOlympian, and 2020 team Olympic silver medalist.^[2]

Ysaora Thibus is studying at theESCP Business School. In 2013, she received the Bernard Destremau Prize from theAcadémie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, which rewards a high-level athlete who combines competition and higher education.^[3]

Thibus took up fencing at the age of 7 inGuadeloupe. At 17, she moved to France to train with the French national youth team inAix-en-Provence, joining the senior training team in Paris a year later.^[4]

Thibus competed in the2012 London Olympic Games.^[5] In 2016, after winning her first team bronze medal at the Rio Worlds in April,^[6] she participated in the2016 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.^[7]

In 2021, she won a silver medal in the team foil event with Anita Blaze, Astrid Guyart and Pauline Ranvier at theTokyo Olympic Games,^[8] losing in the final to the Russian team.^[9] Beaten in the second round in individual, she said she was "psychologically exhausted" after the Olympic competition and stopped training for four months.^[10]

In February 2024, Thibus was issued with a provisional suspension after testing positive forostarine at the Challenge International de Paris event in January.^[11] Following due process, in May 2024 theInternational 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.^[12] Therefore, other than disqualification of results from the event in Paris, Thibus received no sanction. An appeal byWADA to the decision was dismissed by theCourt of Arbitration for Sport in July 2025.^[12][13]

At theParis Olympics in 2024, Thibus lost her first match in thewomen's individual foil and was a member of the French team in theteam foil event where they placed fifth.

Thibus founded the EssentiElle program for women athletes, which aims to amplify their voices within the world of athletics.^[14]

From around 2021 Thibus was in a long-term relationship and engaged to American foil fencerRace Imboden, however as of 2025 they appear to have split up.^[15][16]

Year	Location	Event	Position
2021	Tokyo,Japan	Team Women's Foil	2nd[17]

Year	Location	Event	Position
2013	Budapest,Hungary	Team Women's Foil	2nd[18]
2014	Kazan,Russia	Team Women's Foil	3rd[19]
2015	Moscow,Russia	Team Women's Foil	3rd[20]
2016	Rio de Janeiro,Brazil	Team Women's Foil	3rd[21]
2017	Leipzig,Germany	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[22]
2018	Wuxi,China	Individual Women's Foil	2nd[23]
2018	Wuxi,China	Team Women's Foil	3rd[24]
2022	Cairo,Egypt	Individual Women's Foil	1st[25]

Year	Location	Event	Position
2012	Legnano,Italy	Team Women's Foil	2nd[26]
2013	Zagreb,Croatia	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[27]
2013	Zagreb,Croatia	Team Women's Foil	2nd[28]
2014	Strasbourg,France	Team Women's Foil	3rd[29]
2015	Montreux,Switzerland	Team Women's Foil	3rd[30]
2016	Toruń,Poland	Team Women's Foil	3rd[31]
2017	Tbilisi,Georgia	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[32]
2018	Novi Sad,Serbia	Team Women's Foil	3rd[33]
2019	Düsseldorf,Germany	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[34]
2019	Düsseldorf,Germany	Team Women's Foil	2nd[35]

Date	Location	Event	Position
2015-03-13	Havana,Cuba	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[36]
2016-06-03	Shanghai,China	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[37]
2017-05-19	Shanghai,China	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[38]
2020-02-07	Turin,Italy	Individual Women's Foil	1st[39]
2021-03-26	Doha,Qatar	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[40]

Date	Location	Event	Position
2013-02-08	Budapest,Hungary	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[41]
2013-03-01	St. Petersburg,Russia	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[42]
2014-05-02	Shanghai,China	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[43]
2015-01-16	Gdańsk,Poland	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[44]
2015-10-16	Cancún,Mexico	Individual Women's Foil	1st[45]
2017-01-13	Algier,Algeria	Individual Women's Foil	1st[46]
2019-01-25	Saint-Maur-des-Fossés,France	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[47]
2019-05-03	Tauberbischofsheim,Germany	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[48]
2019-11-22	Cairo,Egypt	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[49]
2020-01-10	Katowice,Poland	Individual Women's Foil	3rd[50]

• Knight of the National Order of Merit (France) on 8 September 2021.^[51]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toYsaora Thibus.

• Ysaora Thibus at theInternational Fencing Federation
• Ysaora Thibus at theEuropean Fencing Confederation
• Ysaora Thibus atOlympics.com
• Ysaora Thibus at Team France (in French)
• Ysaora Thibus at theFrench Olympic Committee (archived) (in French)
• Ysaora Thibus atOlympedia

• 1991 births
• Living people
• French female foil fencers
• Olympic fencers for France
• Fencers at the 2012 Summer Olympics
• Fencers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
• Summer World University Games medalists in fencing
• French people of Guadeloupean descent
• Sportspeople from Les Abymes
• FISU World University Games bronze medalists for France
• World Fencing Championships medalists
• Medalists at the 2011 Summer Universiade
• Fencers at the 2020 Summer Olympics
• Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics
• Olympic medalists in fencing
• Olympic silver medalists for France
• 21st-century French sportswomen
• Fencers at the 2023 European Games
• Medalists at the 2023 European Games
• European Games silver medalists for France
• European Games medalists in fencing
• Fencers at the 2024 Summer Olympics
• French sportspeople in doping cases
• Doping cases in fencing

• CS1 French-language sources (fr)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from July 2025
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• Articles using sports links with data from Wikidata