René Ressejac-Duparc

René Ressejac-Duparc (28 September 1880 – 19 April 1941) was a French footballer who played as a midfielder and who competed in the 1900 Olympic Games, winning a silver medal as a member of the USFSA team, which was primarily Club Français players. With Club Français, he reached the finals of the 1900 Challenge International du Nord, and the 1899 and 1900 Championnat de Paris, and won the Coupe Manier three consecutive times at the turn of the century between 1899 and 1901.

René Ressejac-Duparc

The French team at the 1900 Olympics
Personal information
Full name	René Ressejac-Duparc
Date of birth	(1880-09-28)28 September 1880
Place of birth	Suresnes, Paris, France
Date of death	19 April 1941(1941-04-19) (aged 60)
Place of death	Pornic, France
Height	1,65 m
Position(s)	Midfielder
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
–1898	Puteaux Sports Union
1898–1901	Club Français
International career
1900	France MNT	2	(0+)
Medal record Men's football Representing France Football at the Summer Olympics 1900 Paris Team Competition
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Early and personal life

René Ressejac-Duparc was born in 1880, lived in Puteaux, and was employed at the Banque de France. He had connections to Loire-Atlantique through his mother (originally from Châteaubriant), as well as a home in Pornic, where he died on 19 April 1941, at the age of 60. Biographer Stéphane Gachet suggested Duparc was in Pornic "perhaps to take refuge during the war".

Duparc remained practically unknown and of uncertain identity for several decades since he was only cited in the database of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a "medalist for France in football" in 1900, with no first name and no other information published about this Olympic footballer until the December 2023 book "All the French medalists from 1896 to the present". The biography in the book was compiled from research by Stéphane Gachet, who investigated unknown French Olympians ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, and who found genealogical records matching the footballer to René Ressejac-Duparc. Gachet then contacted his grandson, Patrick Ressejac-Duparc, who lived in Portugal with his wife, to tell him that his grandfather was an Olympic medalist.

Playing career

Club career

Duparc began his career playing at U.S. Puteaux before joining Club Français when he was eighteen, in 1898. His mentor was said to be Club Français midfielder Alfred Bloch. On 29 April 1900, Club Français faced Le Havre AC in the final of the 1900 Challenge International du Nord at Tourcoing, which ended in a 2–3 loss. A match summary in L'Auto of a 16 October 1900 game wrote that he was a change to the team's midfield, but as "a good player who knows his job", it marked an improvement.

Duparc continued in the midfield when the team began competing in the Paris championship, the top-level division tournament, later that month, playing in all but one match (during which his absence, despite replacement, was noted). The team confidently won all their games. Continuing to see success in the tournament, L'Auto noted that Duparc was one of the youngest players on the team and that he showed a lot of promise but was already "a good player, very resistant, very tough". He played in the final against Standard Athletic Club, but was injured in the first half as the match ended in a 1–1 draw.

Duparc was also in the winning Club Français line-up, playing in each match, for the 1900 Coupe Manier, which took place later in December. After winning the Coupe Manier, Club Français's first (including Duparc) and second teams played international friendlies against Croydon and their reserves. Duparc's performance in this match was praised, with his intelligent ball-passing in the first half said to break up Croydon attacks and his "beautiful" passes to the team's forwards in the second half often drawing applause; it ended in a 3–3 draw.

On 6 January 1901, Club Français faced Standard Athletic Club again, this time in the preliminary rounds of the 1901 Challenge International du Nord, which ended in a 0–1 loss. With the referee getting lost in the game, the play turned brutal, mostly perpetrated by Standard Athletic Club, who targeted the Club Français midfielders; Bloch was kicked so hard in the stomach that he had to go off, while Duparc along with Louis Bach and Cuny were "badly hit". Club Français wrote a letter of complaint to the football association. Duparc's misfortune continued; when travelling to compete in another match in January 1901, a group called la bande noire burgled him, taking his shoes and bag.

In the 1901 Championnat de Paris, Duparc began playing as a forward again, still with Club Français.

International career

Duparc was listed as a forward for the USFSA (French amateur) team, composed mostly of Club Français players, at the 1900 Olympic Games. He was not selected for the opening match against Upton Park on 20 September, which ended in a humiliating 0–4 loss, so Duparc was then picked up for the second match three days later, helping his side to a 6–2 victory over Belgium, which was mostly made up of students from the French-speaking Université libre de Bruxelles; the authors of four of these goals are unknown, so Duparc, who started as a forward alongside teammates Georges Garnier and Gaston Peltier, might have scored at least one of them. The French team came second and Duparc was thus awarded with a silver medal.

Honours

Club

Club Français

• Paris championship:
  • Champions (2): 1898 and 1900
• Coupe Manier:
  • Champions (2): 1899, 1900, 1901.

International

France MNT

• Summer Olympics:
  • Silver medal (1): 1900

External links

• Olympic profile