From our special correspondent in Tokyo,
Mixed feelings in the Tokyo Aquatics Center for French swimming. Still no trace of a podium and the increasingly distressing prospect of the first Games without a medal since 1996 which is approaching, but a succession which is not so far from the big blow. Thus, Maxime Grousset, the last Formula 1 out of the Fédé pits over 100 meters, the flagship event of the discipline.
“At the end, I did hara-kiri”
Qualified a tenth hair for the final, the Caledonian chose the strategy “thoroughly to thoroughly” from the first 50, maintaining up to 75 meters the idea of an exceptional third place for a boy of 22 still far from Olympic level six months ago. Then Chalmers, sucked in by the Dressel loco, dropped him off, like the Russian who finally won a bronze medal. “I looked at the table, I saw 4th, I was very happy, reacted the swimmer from New Caledonia. I was a little frustrated to be so close to the podium but to get 3rd place, I would have had to raise my level a notch and it was complicated ”.
The idea behind that? Author of his second fastest time over the distance (47’72), two days after having exploded his best time in a series (47’52), Grousset has not yet swam to find the famous second breath of the 75 meters, the one that differentiates the very big champions from the others. “We said with my trainer [Michel Chrétien] I had to try something, I was outside so I went all the way, really hard. At the end it was normal, we were doing hara-kiri we were in Japan. I broke and that’s what makes Chalmers far overtake me at the end. Because I have more energy ”.
Significant room for improvement
Fortunately, the case is working, and Alain Bernard explains for example in theTeam of the day that he waited a long time for the click of this damn last quarter of the journey. No French swimmer has gone so high in the Olympic final since Yannick Agnel in 2012, proof that the potential is there. “I was able to confront them, and I believe that
I am one of the best now. I’m super proud of myself, I have a tiny bit left to get over it and make the podiums, that’s nothing ”. And why not in the 50m freestyle, in which he is also involved in Tokyo? The boy has mainly worked in the 100m, but at the speed at which he goes down the lap… We will know on Sunday.