After their space trip on Monday and their ode to women on Tuesday, the French synchronized swimmers paid tribute to the French cancan on Wednesday. All events combined, the French team took fourth place, just a few points off the podium.
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Last Saturday, during her appearance at the now famous Club France, the coach of the French artistic swimming team, Julie Fabre, showed her true colours. The goal? “To be among the most surprising teams” in the Olympic competition. Whether in the gestures, with a choreography by Mourad Merzouki, or the costumes, including intriguing caps with painted faces. “In each of our choreographies, we worked to ensure that there was a link with our country,” she added. On Wednesday evening, August 7, at the end of the last ballet of the three they performed in their race for the medal, the French artistic swimmers had only one word on their lips: “pride”. Proud of the result: they took a fine fourth place, a few points off the podium. And proud of their performance in front of a wild French crowd at the Olympic Aquatic Center (CAO) in Saint-Denis.
It was on board a rocket that the Bleues entered the competition. Swimsuits and swimming caps in the form of nods to space suits, robotic music, the swimmers launched their Games and their acrobat Eve Planeix into the stars on Monday. Three minutes inspired by their discussions with Thomas Pesquet, whom they met two years ago at Insep where they train. The emphasis was on changes of rhythm, in a ballet divided into three stages: takeoff, levitation in zero gravity and landing. During this trip into space, the swimmers will have spent most of their time with their heads upside down, chaining together footwork and other figures in the splits: this is where you pick up the most difficulty points. Sometimes, they just had no choice: in the technical program, certain elements are imposed on all teams. Moreover, taking advantage of being with their feet in the air and their heads under water, their American opponents paid tribute to Michael Jackson, performing his Smooth Criminal and skilfully executing a backwards moonwalk like no other.
Feminist Slam
On Tuesday, it was the words of a kid from Seine-Saint-Denis that resonated in the CAO. For its free program, an event focused primarily on choreographic research, the French team performed to Mesdames by Grand Corps Malade. Audacious, even perilous. Feminist slam in French, the meaning of which none of the judges, all foreigners, could grasp. An ode to women that also had the potential to unsettle the audience, who saw not eight but sixteen swimmers in the pool. Thanks to the innovative caps, topped with faces, worn by the French women who had become two-headed naiads. A ballet that had been kept secret until then and that will never be performed again. All thought up by Mourad Merzouki, who introduced artistic swimmers to hip-hop and krump.
Everything is designed to strike a big blow. They also gave blows, punching the air, raising their fists and elbowing. As if to appropriate the slammer’s words. “If I appreciate with both eyes when you swing your body, I also applaud with both hands when you swing your pork.”
Change of musical atmosphere on Wednesday, with an acrobatic program celebrating… the French cancan. To the Galop infernal d’Orphée aux Enfernal, an operetta tune emblematic of French cabarets, the Bleues swung their legs Moulin Rouge style as soon as they entered the stage, before repeating the same beats once submerged in the water. At the end of the ballet, still dressed in her blue-white-red rhinestone swimsuit, gelatin mixed with pink glitter on her head (the mixture used to keep their hair in place), captain Ambre Esnault reveals one last secret: “We recorded our voices to the music, we let out little cries. For the Games in Paris, we had to add our own little touch.”
A historic result
In the middle of the pool, the acrobatics followed one another. Sometimes twists, sometimes more static lifts based on flexibility. For their final appearance, the French women tried everything with the highest difficulty card and even added new elements at the last moment. “Like our third lift where there is a hand-to-hand balance, very risky because of the 180-degree rotation, which we started working on this morning,” explains Ambre Esnault.
Sixth on Monday after the technical routine, seventh on Tuesday after the free program, third on Wednesday in the acrobatic event, the French team took fourth place in the final ranking. A historic result for this return to the deep end. No French team had competed as a team since the Sydney Games in 2000, where triple world champion Virginie Dedieu and her teammates had already finished in the doldrums. The 2024 version of the team even did better than its coach Julie Fabre, fifth with her team in Atlanta in 1996. In the absence of the Russians who have been collecting all the medals for twenty years, the French knew they were capable of getting their place. The remodeled competition format, with the introduction of the acrobatic event and the reform of the evaluation method, opened up the game. Not enough to prevent the Chinese, American and Spanish favorites from monopolizing the top of the ranking. They finished on the podium in that order. The French women were just fifteen points short of winning bronze.
