The Final Cut

Tentatively, I began looking into the lives of women who excelled in combat sports. After hearing about the adrenaline of kickboxing, I started doing it myself; the claims were not unfounded! And it was during this period of research that I stumbled across Ysaora on Instagram. Whilst one could not fail to be impressed by her Olympic record and sporting prowess, I was drawn to her passion project, Essentielle. Rather like my own belief that women’s narratives in action films are wanting, Ysaora created her platform to combat the lack of reportage around women in sport. Despite women making up 40% of athletes, a UNESCO study showed that only 4%of sports media is about them. If this wasn’t a story enough, she’d conceived the project in a pandemic…

To some, it may seem curious that the timing was of interest. Of course, Ysaora’s initiative is necessary whenever she devised it. But, I began to wonder, was the cancellation of the Olympics, in such extraordinary circumstances, part of the reason that she had the capacity to create Essentielle? If you are an elite athlete, who do you become when the goalposts shift and alter your intense regime? For those training in combat sports, how do you practice without an opponent? These were the sort of questions I wanted to ask Ysaora. So, as is with the start of all good stories in 2021, I slide into her DMs.

“Personally, I hate the expectation that I am meant to be one thing,” Ysaora continues. “As women, we certainly have more pressure about what we choose to wear. For example, you might not wear a particular item at night out of fear that you might ‘bother’ someone. But, at the same time, fashion is a statement and a way to express yourself. I’ve always tried to do things my way and I hate that people expect me to stay in one box or one thing. With clothes, I can show this! If I want to be sporty, I’ll dress sporty. If I want to be sexy, I’ll do that… I like to explore as many things as I can, I’m sort of a chameleon like that.”

Funnily enough, it was actually the look of fencing that drew the silver medallist to her sport. In her home country of Guadeloupe, her mother brought a young Ysaora along to her brother’s fencing class. Immediately, Ysaora was curious about the bright white outfits, the fighting and the foils. Reading the accounts of other women in combat sports, I noticed that several were introduced to their practice via a male sibling. Ysaora concurs, remarking that she has spoken with several leading athletes in judo, boxing and fencing who also got into the sport because of their brothers. “Parents still think about combat sports as something for their sons,” she explains, “but I am trying to change that and say that any girl can do anything she wants. If she wants to play a combat sport, she can too.”

With all of Ysaora’s ambition and various interests, it would be quite possible to get sidetracked from her and her teammates’ unbelievable silver medal win at Tokyo. In our film, The Countdown, she discusses how even if she didn’t win she’d know that she’d done everything in her power. But, as all competitive people know, loss can feel a little different on the day. “For a few days, I was devastated,” she concedes over her knockout match with Russian foil fencer Larisa Korobeynikova, “but I had to make a comeback for the team”. And, turn it around, she did.

Winning against Canada as part of the Women’s Foil Team in the quarter finals was a strong start. On paper, the next opponent, Italy, seemed like the victors. Throughout Italy’s lead, the French team were down by 12 touches. As Ysaora stepped up to meet her opponent, she was down by 3 but she and her companions had agreed to keep pushing no matter what. In Ysaora’s own words “to fight until the end” and in the final bout she dominated bringing in the silver medal win for her and the rest of the team.