There will be only one tricolor competing in the main event this summer in Tokyo. And unsurprisingly, it will be Maxime Grousset. Announced as the big favorite of the 100 m of the French championships, the Caledonian licensed in Amiens assumed his status this Friday evening at the Odyssey. That of a young boss. Absolutely nobody was able to come and tickle him, and after a race full of control, he touched down with a very comfortable margin of almost a second over the competition, in 47”89. He was ahead of Charles Rihoux (Nice, 48”81) and Clément Mignon (Marseille, 48”89).
Léon Marchand splashes the start of the French championships
“I was always told that it was good, that I was going to qualify, but I answered no, that as long as I had not swam the final, it was not done”, says the one who trains at Insep, under the leadership of Michel Chrétien. So even if he expected it, given his chronometric references, the qualification frees him from a certain pressure: “I am really relieved and super happy”, blows the 5th of the recent European Championships in Budapest.
I knew it was good when I heard the club mates screaming. There is a lot of joy. I was coming here for that. I was hoping for the 100m, it didn’t happen. Fortunately, there was the 200m!
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Like Maxime Grousset, Antoine Viquerat was added to the list of Habs qualified for the Tokyo Games, now with fourteen individual swimmers. The 22-year-old Parisian, licensed at the Dauphins de Toulouse, won the 200 m breaststroke in 2’10”21, improving his personal best by more than a second to drop 14 small hundredths below the minimum required (2 ‘ 10”35). And it was at the cost of a last 50m where he tore himself away under the encouragement of the whole Odyssey that he stamped his passport for Japan.
A French record for Analia Pigrée
“I knew it was good when I heard the club friends screaming. There is a lot of joy. I was coming here for that. I was hoping for the 100m, it didn’t happen (Editor’s note: 2nd in 1’00”49, Tuesday). Fortunately, there was the 200m! The qualification for the Games constitutes a consecration for those who lead swimming and studying successfully. The champion of France follows a course in engineering school, at Insa in Toulouse.
Chartres on the road to Tokyo
Another highlight of the day, Analia Pigrée, 19, broke the national record in the 50m backstroke twice. In the playoffs (27”81), she erased Béryl Gastaldello from the shelves for 5 hundredths. In the final, his runner-up Mary-Ambre Moluh, only 16 years old, set the same time of 27”76. But the Guyanese still reduced her record to 27.59. The event is not on the menu of the Games, we will not see in Tokyo the one that crossed the Atlantic for Font-Romeu five years ago. But she has planned to bet on the 100m to aim for the 2024 Olympics and we would bet a few tickets on her presence in Paris …
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