The tricolor delegation continues to collect medals in sports swimming at the European Championships in Rome (August 11 to 17). At the end of the third day of competitions, Les Bleues and Les Bleus have already been on the podium five times.
On Saturday August 13, they added a first gold medal and a silver medal to the two silver medals and the bronze medal won on Thursday and Friday.
Gold for Yohann Ndoye Brouard
Yohann Ndoye Brouard has come a long way. Friday, August 12, it was alone in the pool, that he had to start to win his qualification in the final of the 200 meters backstroke. A punishment ? No. The Frenchman had broken his toe clip on the starting block of his semi-final and got up after only a few meters of racing. He had obtained the right to re-launch, later and solo.
On Saturday, the incident was forgotten. The 21-year-old swimmer, who had, despite his setbacks, achieved the second time (1 minute 56 seconds 39) of the semi-finals, climbed on the first step of the podium. By beating the French record in passing (1 minute 55 seconds 62). He beat Hungarian Benedek Kovacs and Englishman Luke Greenbank.
Yohann Ndoye Brouard has yet to compete in the 50 meters and the 100 meters backstroke. On this last distance, he can also hope for a medal. At the Worlds in June in Budapest, he finished fourth in the final of the 100 meters backstroke, signing a new personal best (52 seconds 50), but he finished only 6 tenths from the podium, in a race at the end of which the he Italian Thomas Ceccon won gold by setting a new world record (51 seconds 60).
“Yohann knows the gap that separates him from Ceccon, but he also knows that he is not untouchablesays Michel Chrétien, his trainer. In a final, everything is permitted and the one-day race will mean that, perhaps, he can beat him. »
Money for Marie Wattel
The 100-meter butterfly is rather his favorite swim – and his distance –. But, on the program of the European championships, there was first a 50-meter butterfly, Saturday August 13. And even if Marie Wattel ensured that she had above all committed to this race because she wanted “go for the best time” that she had realized three years ago “ in the final of the world championships (5e place, French record at stake), the French swimmer did not shun a medal.
Especially since the Lille woman won a silver medal, behind Sarah Sjöström (25 seconds 33 against 24 seconds 96). In the semi-finals on Saturday, she had already achieved the second best time, behind the Swede.
At 25, Marie Wattel thus confirms that she has come out of the water after suffering, by her own admission, “a big slap” to Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021, with only sixth place in the 100m butterfly final.
To rebuild herself, she then chose to leave England, where she had been living for five years, to return to France, settling in Marseille. In June, the first results came in: she became vice-world champion in the 100-meter butterfly in Budapest.
It is also in this stroke and over this distance that her new coach, Julien Jacquier, thinks “completely capable of being European champion, given the progress made this year”. By 2021, she had won European gold in the 100m butterfly (and silver in the 100m freestyle).
To put the odds on her side, Marie Wattel has chosen to line up only for the two butterfly events in Rome. His second meeting is set for Sunday, August 14.
World record for Romanian David Popovici
He is only 17 years old, but he is already flying over the basins. Romanian David Popovici was crowned European champion in the 100 meter freestyle beating, with a time of 46 seconds 86, the world record set by Brazilian César Cielo in 2009 (46 seconds 91).
This ultra-fast final saw Maxime Grousset fail at the foot of the podium. The Frenchman, who was nevertheless in the lead at 50 meters, finished in 4th place. As during the Olympic Games in Tokyo in the summer of 2021.
This 4th place was then considered promising by the specialists, because the Frenchman had registered in the wake of three “monsters” that are the American Caeleb Dressel, the Australian Kyle Chalmers and the Russian Kliment Kolesnikov.
Since then, the one who started swimming the breaststroke at the age of 5 in Nouméa, has confirmed that he has become a benchmark in sprinting. In Budapest, in June, he had come close to the world title in the 100 meters freestyle, finishing one breath away from David Popovici (47 seconds 64 against 47 seconds 58), before adding a bronze medal to this silver medal. in the 50m freestyle.
In Rome, the one who acts as “captain” of the French team at the European Championships, in the absence of Florent Manaudou, Léon Marchand and Mélanie Hénique, won silver in the 50-meter butterfly on Friday August 12,