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The Barbairanais Simon Désert is part of the workforce of the French rugby team at 7. This weekend in Los Angeles, with his teammates, he will try to add a title of world champion to that of the 2024 Olympics.
While all the eyes are turned to the dam match which will oppose the USC to the Sporting Club Albigeois tomorrow Saturday, the Rugby news of the Carcassonnais also passes through Los Angeles. In the stadium which will house the rugby competition at 7 of the Olympic Games 2028, the young Barbairanais Simon Désert will defend on May 3 and 4 the colors of France during the final HSBC SVNS tournament, the world rugby championship at 7. This discipline of the oval balloon that has been so talked about last summer with the title of Olympic champion of France and the consecration of Antoine Dupont Now promised to boom, as it brings together more and more followers.
RC Alaric, USC, ASB, Stade Toulousain … His career is now written in rugby at 7
Simon Désert began rugby from the age of 6. So in Trèbes, his father Yannick, himself a rugby player, passed the virus to him by accompanying him every week at the RC Alaric rugby school in Capendu, before the whole little family migrates to Barbaira. Already spotted, the young boy joined the “yellow and black” ranks of the US Carcassonne with the cadets, then the juniors, while also playing with the hope pole of Béziers. A resident at the Jean-Moulin high school, in Béziers, a birthplace of Pierre-Paul Riquet, he obtained the bac and then left the USC to sign at the Toulouse stadium. Aligned with teammates who are delighted today by the Pink City pennant team (Joshua Brenan, Paul Costes, Clément Vergé, Joël Merkler…), Simon Glane two titles of French hopes champion. Then followed a crossing of the desert (too easy!), For a little more than a season. Returning to the USC, his qualities did not find material for the staff to be aligned with the Pro D2 team. Perhaps it had to be recruited from the outside rather than being from the seraglio! With an ideal template for rugby at 7 (1.84 m for 84 kg) with superb speed and very good endurance, Simon had all the assets to succeed. Our Audois therefore burned the stages by integrating the Barbarians “France Development”, the anteroom of the French team. In 2023, he was crowned champion of France and Europe with this training.
The best test of the season
Since September, Simon has been selected from the Blues Olympic winners, a revised team where only five players who were of the coronation remain last July. Aged now 24 years old, the three-quarter wing holds in most competitions, including the tournament that has qualified among the eight best rugby nations at 7. Around the world, the teams clashed in Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vancouver, Cape Town, Perth before joining this weekend the Californian coast. Our Audois was also nominated by the International Federation for the best test of the season. An 80 -meter test in South Africa which allowed December to win against the formidable Fijians thanks to the transformation of another player licensed at the USC, Enahemo Artaud, Auvergne of origin.
A difficult hen with Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand
Tomorrow Saturday, France will have to be victorious of a hen of four for a final which will take place on the night of Sunday to Monday. Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand will be on the menu, but not enough to impress Simon, which we have joined by phone this Tuesday: “I’m fine, I am confident. We know what we have to put in place even if the Argentina that we are going to face first appears as the big piece of the hen”. The other hen will oppose Spain, Australia, Fiji and Great Britain. At the end of this final tournament that everyone hopes to be successful, Simon Désert should recharge his batteries for a short week at the foot of the Alaric. The season will not be finished with a rally in Cap Breton, in the Landes, before two final tournaments this summer in Croatia and Germany. A life of a big traveler when we know that, each month, he divides between a one -week internship in Marcoussis, the different stages of tournaments, an autonomous training most often welcomed for him at the Toulousain stadium, and a family day with his partner Margaux, in Nîmes. Its objective remains of course to keep the Olympic title during the Los Angeles Games in 2028. For the rest, Simon is not closed at the idea of rebuilding at XV. Good luck champion!
