Manon Brunet is a French sabre fencer who has taken medals from the big three tournaments of world fencing: the European Championships, the World Championships, and the Olympic Games. She has also won more than a dozen World Cup medals, including six golds. Since beginning her senior fencing career in 2012, she has been ranked as one of the 10 best female sabre fencers in the world an amazing seven times. She is currently ranked eighth. She is popular on social media (over 28,000 Instagram followers) and is married to fellow French fencing champion Bolade Apithy.

Brunet was born in Lyon in February 1996, the daughter of former Ligue 1 footballer Philippe Brunet. After trying taekwondo and dancing, she fell into fencing, a sport that she tried because it seemed quite funny. However, things got serious when she was spotted by a scout from the national training hub in Orleans, and she left home at 15 to join it. She later joined the National Institute for Sport, Exercise, and Performance in Paris.

Brunet began competing as a senior fencer in 2012, and in 2014, she helped the sabre team to win silver at both the European and World Championships. The following year, she took her first individual podium in the World Cup, winning her first event in 2015. The French team performed particularly well in the European Championships, winning medals at every event between 2014 and 2019. They also won team gold at the 2018 World Championships. Brunet’s proudest moment to date, however, is surely the individual bronze medal she won at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.