 Ponsinet originally had his background in athletics and at the age of eighteen was a member of both the French junior triathlon and sprinting teams; a year later he was crowned French junior triathlon champion, and ran a one hundred metre time of 11.3 seconds.In early 1940 Édouard was courted by French rugby league club AS Carcassonne but before he was able to play a competition game for the club the new vichy government outlawed rugby league forcing all clubs to play rugby union or cease to exist.AS Carcassonne become "ACE Carcassonne" for a short time and played rugby union over the next three years, until the Vichy government was taken out of power and the Carcassonne club reverted to rugby league.