Laura Élodie Flessel-Colovic, born November 6, 1971, in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, is a French épée fencer. She is the most successful French Olympian with five medals. In 1996, she married sports journalist Denis Colovic.
Flessel began fencing in Guadeloupe and joined the French sports center INSEP in Paris at 18. She became French team champion in 1993 and won her first international medal, a silver, at the 1995 World Championships in The Hague. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, she won two gold medals in the first women’s épée events. She later earned two bronze medals (2000 Sydney) and one silver (2004 Athens). Between 1998 and 2007, she won five World Championship titles and twelve World Championship medals in total. In 1998, she also won the European Club Cup with Racing Club de France. After giving birth to her daughter Leilou in 2001, she won a World Championship silver medal four months later. In 2002, she tested positive for the banned substance Coramin but was suspended only three months after the federation concluded it was administered without her knowledge. She continued competing successfully and was the French flag bearer at the 2012 London Olympics, after which she retired. On May 17, 2017, she was appointed Minister of Sports in Prime Minister Édouard Philippe’s government.
Guadeloupe
