(Paris) A little coffee and hop! Mary-Sophie Harvey is gone again!
Twenty-four hours after a disappointing 4 x 100 m freestyle relay, the Quebec swimmer bounced back with energy by placing second in the 200 m freestyle heats on Sunday at noon at the Paris Olympic Games.
In the fourth and final start, Harvey had her usual first 100 metres in full control before opening up the machine in the second half of the race. And in what style! She gradually caught up with her lane neighbour, none other than the Australian Ariarne Titmus, who had won the 400 metres the day before, before beating her on the sidelines at the finish.
Harvey clocked 1:56.21. Only Australia’s Molly O’Callahan, the 2023 world champion in the 100m and 200m, beat her by 0.42sec in the previous heat. Titmus, the Olympic gold medallist in the distance, was 0.02sec behind her.
“It definitely gives you confidence,” agreed the Trois-Rivières native as she caught her breath. “I worked on the confidence of the 200 freestyle all year. During the Olympic trials, I realized that I could measure up to Summer [McIntosh]. In my head, if I can racer Summer, why couldn’t I do the same thing with Molly and Titmus. That’s kind of the mentality I had.”
PHOTO UESLEI MARCELINO, REUTERS
Mary-Sophie Harvey
The CAMO club representative will therefore start from block 4 of the first semi-final wave in the evening (3:50 p.m. EST).
“I wanted to have a good lane for the semi-final, that’s: objective achieved. I wasn’t necessarily satisfied with my race [samedi]. I wanted to get my confidence back this morning by swimming the 200m freestyle in a slightly more relaxed way, as I like to do. It was going well in training and I wanted it to show up in the competition. There is room for improvement for tonight, it’s exciting!”
Harvey is aiming for a lane for Monday night’s final. The 24-year-old felt like she let her teammates down in the relay the night before, where she was the slowest in the heats.
“I won’t lie: I was really disappointed. There were girls who were counting on me. Even I played an important role in it. I was disappointed, but I can’t change anything.”
I knew that even if I had a bad race, it didn’t mean I wasn’t in shape, it didn’t mean I would have a bad Games. It was just about moving on.
Mary-Harvey Harvey
She admitted she probably wouldn’t have been able to bounce back like that in the recent past. She drew on her experience at the Olympic trials, where she managed to maintain her focus after a strong first race in the 100m butterfly.
Harvey had also sacrificed this individual event to focus on Saturday’s relay. “I would have liked to see what I could have done, but I know that the 100m butterfly is a race that I will probably do in the next few years. It doesn’t bother me more than that. The big focus this year was the 200m freestyle.”
The Trois-Rivières native regretted not having consumed caffeine the day before her relay. She did not make the same mistake again…
“I had a little coffee, but I didn’t have my Monster [une boisson énergétique, NDLR] ! There is room for tonight… »