The tricolor delegation is continuing to collect medals in sports swimming at the European Championships in Rome (from 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, it was alone in the pool that he had to start to win his qualification in the final of the 200 m backstroke. A punishment ? No. The Frenchman had broken his toe clip on the starting block of the semi-final and had stopped after only a few meters of racing. He had obtained the right to start again, later and solo.
On Saturday, the incident was forgotten. The 21-year-old swimmer, who had, despite his setbacks, achieved the second time (1 min 56 s 39) of the semi-finals, climbed on the first step of the podium. By beating the French record in passing (1 min 55 s 62). He beat Hungarian Benedek Kovacs and Englishman Luke Greenbank.
Yohann Ndoye-Brouard has yet to compete in the 50m and 100m backstroke. On this last distance, he can also hope for a medal. At the Worlds in June, in Budapest, he finished fourth in the 100m backstroke final, signing a new personal best (52.50s), just 6 tenths from the podium, in a race at the end of which the Italian Thomas Ceccon had won the gold by setting a new world record (51 s 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 100m butterfly is his favorite stroke – and distance –. But, on the program of the European championships, there was first a 50m butterfly on Saturday. 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 s 33 against 24 s 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” at the Tokyo Olympics, in the summer of 2021, with a 6e place only 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, to Marseille. In June, the first results came in: she became vice-world champion in the 100m 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”. In 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.
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 100m freestyle, beating, with a time of 46 s 86, the world record set by Brazilian César Cielo in 2009 (46 s 91).
This ultra-fast final saw Maxime Grousset fail at the foot of the podium. The Frenchman, who was in the lead in the 50m, finished in 4e square. As during the Tokyo Olympics, in the summer of 2021.
This 4e place had then been 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 man 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 100m freestyle, finishing a breath away from David Popovici (47 s 64 against 47 s 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 Henique, won silver in the 50m butterfly, Friday.
