Frenchman Maxime Grousset dominated his 100m freestyle semi-final on Tuesday and qualified for the final of the Budapest World Swimming Championships, where Olympic champion in the queen race Caeleb Dressel will be missing. With a time of 47 sec 54, Grousset beat the Hungarian Nandor Nemeth (47.96) and the Serbian Andrej Barna (47.97) by achieving a better time than the one who had crowned him French champion of the distance in April (48.03).
Grousset dominated the first semi-final from start to finish but will have a lot to do in the final against the Romanian David Popovici, who swam faster in the second semi-final, in 47.13. On the other hand, he will benefit from the withdrawal of Caeleb Dressel, the reigning double world champion, who withdrew just before the semi-finals for “medical reasons». «The final is going to be tough“Admitted the New Caledonian. “He misses Caeleb, it’s good for me, but it’s going to be hard all the same.»
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Referring to Popovici, a new pool prodigy at only 17 years old, Grousset admitted that he was “very strong». «On the 200 he was able to impose himself, on the 100 for the moment he is essential. We will see (Wednesday) if he is able to do the same thing but nothing is decided.»