A blue and red blur in the most purple of patches - rugby's boy king Bielle-Biarrey

Investec Champions Cup final: Northampton Saints v Bordeaux-Begles

Venue: Principality Stadium, Cardiff Date: Saturday 24 May Kick-off 14:45 BST

Coverage: Live TV sum connected Welsh connection transmission S4C connected iPlayer, unrecorded power sum connected BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Northampton, pinch unrecorded matter commentary connected nan BBC Sport website

Joel Bielle-Biarrey remembers nan conversation. And his ain disbelief.

"The beingness trainer astatine Grenoble rang maine and and said, 'Joel, your boy is moving really fast'.

"I asked 'how fast?' and he said, 'faster than anyone other successful nan club. Including nan professionals.'

"I conscionable said 'Really?'"

At nan time, Grenoble had conscionable been relegated from nan French apical flight. And Louis, Joel's son, was only 17.

Even to a father's eye, location had been small motion of that speed.

A play before, Louis had been a fly-half. A bully one, but not earmarked for greatness.

"Until 16, he wasn't connected anyone's radar," says Joel. "He was playing for Grenoble, but he wasn't portion of their academy aliases nan nationalist property groups.

"He wasn't accelerated astatine all, 1 of nan skinniest successful nan team, surely not capable to predominate physically.

"But astatine 17 he abruptly grew up.

"He already had nan step, nan vision, nan kicking game, nan skills, but nan velocity and powerfulness came late.

"When Louis had those 2 ingredients, and put everything together… pheh, he was off."

And he hasn't stopped since.

This season, he has scored 31 tries successful 27 matches.

Since nan move of nan year, via a record-breaking 8 tries successful a azygous Six Nations campaign, nan 21-year-old's strike-rate has revved moreover higher, pinch 19 successful 14 games.

He has scored successful each but 1 crippled he has played successful during 2025.

His apical sprint velocity has been measured astatine 37.8 kmh (23.5 mph), external - faster than immoderate subordinate has managed successful 5 years of collecting nan aforesaid information successful football's Premier League., external

He is simply a bluish and reddish blur, successful nan astir purple of patches.

Next successful his supersonic sights are Northampton arsenic his Bordeaux-Begles squad hole for Saturday's Champions Cup final.

It is nan benignant of day Bielle-Biarrey has dreamed astir since he was five.

Joel took Louis and his relative Samuel to their section nine - Seyssins successful Grenoble - aft his woman Sandrine mislaid patience pinch nan boys' backmost plot games.

"They some loved it from nan beginning," remembers Joel.

Louis would slumber cuddled up to a rugby ball. The reddish scrum headdress that has go a trademark was initially a coming from his parents.

"When his superior schoolhouse coach asked nan people what they wanted to be, immoderate of nan kids said occurrence fighter, others said a doctor, Louis ever said he wanted to beryllium a master rugby player," says Joel.

"I told him that he wouldn't, that he would beryllium an technologist conscionable for illustration his dad!"

After Bielle-Biarrey clocked those first eye-popping speeds successful a Grenoble fittingness trial though, those chances slimmed considerably.

After hanging up connected Joel, nan fittingness trainer's adjacent telephone was to Paris.

Bielle-Biarrey's stats were truthful impressive, they breached a French national threshold. Anyone putting up specified numbers needed to beryllium dialled straight into nan union's office astatine Marcoussis.

Bielle-Biarrey duly scorched up a bid of tests and was fast-tracked into nan France Under-20 squad, still aged conscionable 17. Joel had to motion a waiver to let him to beryllium involved.

Having turned 18 conscionable six days earlier, he made his debut against Italy successful nan 2021 Under-20 Six Nations and crossed for a effort successful nan campaign-closing triumph complete Ireland a fewer weeks later.

Top 14 clubs sniffed a talent.

Bordeaux president Laurent Marti's early and enthusiastic transportation won out. Bielle-Biarrey arrived astatine nan nine successful 2021, intending to train pinch nan first team, but play for nan under-21 side.

However, an wounded to full-back Romain Buros opened up a slot for a first elder commencement successful a Champions Cup lucifer against Scarlets successful January 2022. Bielle-Biarrey, conscionable 18, scored a hat-trick.

Twenty months later, he made his elder France debut. Two months aft that he was nan starting helping successful an epic Rugby World Cup quarter-final against South Africa.

Now, he mightiness conscionable beryllium nan champion rugby subordinate connected nan planet.

Like Bielle-Biarry himself, nan emergence has been quick.

With skipper Antoine Dupont retired injured, Bielle-Biarrey is now French rugby's pin-up prince - a domiciled he is still acclimatising to.

"He is doing his champion to header pinch it - 5 years agone he was nan 1 asking for autographs," says Joel.

"What is frustrating for him sometimes is that it is not imaginable to please everyone. Sometimes he steps retired nan dressing room and location are 300 group waiting.

"He has possibly 10, 20, 30 minutes earlier he gets connected nan bus, he mightiness still person to drawback thing to eat and he conscionable doesn't person time.

"This is what he doesn't like."

It is 1 of nan reasons he chose Bordeaux, nan larboard metropolis successful south-west France. He visited Racing 92, but recovered Paris excessively bustling and busy.

Noel McNamara, Bordeaux's onslaught coach, says Bielle-Biarrey has brought his ain marque of small-town hustle pinch him though, leaning connected nan skills he relied connected arsenic an under-sized teenage fly-half.

"Everyone starts disconnected pinch nan pace, but I deliberation that really undersells Louis' value," he told Rugby Union Weekly.

"Obviously he is quick, but I person worked pinch an atrocious batch of very speedy group and it doesn't ever make them exceptional rugby players.

"The point astir Louis is his pace, but besides his anticipation, his timing and his mentation though nan week.

"His workrate, his cognition and his mindset are first class, and that is an effect he has connected group astir him.

"They expect things to hap erstwhile he has nan ball. It gives them nan assurance to activity a small harder to beryllium successful support because Louis makes things happen."

Joel isn't judge precisely wherever nan magic comes from.

His ain rugby profession was brief, playing arsenic a backmost statement astatine assemblage and past a happy half play astatine East Kilbride while connected an internship successful Glasgow successful nan early 1990s.

Sandrine is from Reunion, a French overseas territory betwixt Madagascar and Mauritius, and, while she isn't particularly sporting, Joel suggests her inheritance mightiness person "spiced up nan DNA".

On Saturday, astatine nan Principality, it is Saints' move to effort and grip nan heat.