Florent Manaudou, Maxime Grousset, Charlotte Bonnet, Marie Wattel have an appointment in Limoges. The tricolor swimming executives will be aligned at the French swimming championship from Tuesday April 5 to Sunday April 10, eight months after the Jthem disappointing Tokyo Olympics, finished with only one medal for tricolor swimming.
After postponing the World Championships scheduled for May in Japan to 2023 due to the pandemic, the International Federation has finally added to the 2022 calendar an exceptional edition of the Worlds, from June 18 to July 3 in Budapest, in addition to the Europe scheduled for August 11-21 in Rome.
Qualification for these two meetings therefore goes through the Limoges swimming pool, where the French Federation has set selection criteria. “demanding”warned the national technical director Julien Issoulié. To redeem your ticket, you will have to achieve the minimums in the final, within the limit of two qualified swimmers per race for the Worlds and four for the European Championships.
For example, Florent Manaudou, the only French swimmer who returned from Tokyo with a medal (silver in the 50m freestyle), will have to swim in 22”18 or less on Saturday to validate his qualification.
#Swimming The ticket office for the French championships is open! Book your tickets now ▶https://t.co/BhBkPEjT3E…
April 5-10, 2022
Swimming pool Aquapolis – Limoges
Come and make as much noise as possible for our Tricolores!
Attach @ILLUSTRASPORT pic.twitter.com/qv9UePK3Ju— FFN (@FFNatation) March 15, 2022
This will be the opportunity for the 31-year-old swimmer to measure himself once again against Maxime Grousset, who had dominated him on the one-way trip last December in Montpellier.
“We play sports to have these great rivalries. It takes adversity to pull ourselves up (…) I know that until the end of my career, I will be in confrontation with him”said Florent Manaudou about the 22-year-old Caledonian.
“It’s always good to face one of the best in the world”estimated for his part Maxime Grousset, who arrived at the foot of the Olympic 100m freestyle podium last summer, and who says he is capable of being at his best level both at the Worlds and at the Euro.
In addition to the Manaudou-Grousset duel, another opposition could animate the Limougeaud meeting, that between back-runners Yohann Ndoye Brouard and Mewen Tomac.
We will also follow the performances of Charlotte Bonnet, who, after sad Olympics, left her longtime coach Fabrice Pellerin to give “new impetus” to his career under the direction of the emblematic Philippe Lucas. “I needed someone who pushes me to my limits, there I am served”, she explained.
The competition must also make it possible to take the temperature of the next generation of French swimming, less than two and a half years from the Paris Olympics.
For the DTN Julien Issoulié, these French Championships mark “the start of the Paris 2024 campaign. We will see the forces present, if those of the Tokyo Games continue to progress or if there is a plateau. We will see if there are young people who are starting to arrive to tickle everyone a little.”
On the other hand, the great hope Léon Marchand, who sets records for precocity at 19, will not be present in Limoges. The pupil of Bob Bowman, former mentor of Michael Phelps, trains in the United States and was exempted from the French championships.
In any case, he has already qualified for the Worlds, becoming the new French record holder in the 200m medley. For others, Limoges stands out on the way to Rome and Budapest.