By dint of being repeated in their ears, it comes out through their eyes. “Everyone, here at the edge of the pool, tells me: “It’s the home Games, come on, it’s going to be the qualifier, the qualifier, the qualifier.” I couldn’t take that word anymore, it put a lot of pressure on me when I wasn’t thinking…” For a little, Marie Wattel could have filled the footbath of the Odyssey of Chartres. The butterfly girl let her tears flow on Sunday June 16, “relieved” to have validated his ticket for Paris 2024 in the 100m of his specialty. French swimmers will play their qualification for the Olympic Games until Friday June 21 (from July 26 to August 11) during the national championships.
“It’s the worst competition – the Olympic trials – because we have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, summed up veteran Florent Manaudou (33 years old), as a preamble to the final deadline, where he is aiming for a ticket in the 50m freestyle and the 4×100 medley relay in the role of sprinter. It’s not the competition where there are the most good vibes, but the job is to qualify for the Games. »
The captain of the French team and his comrades only have the stopover in Eure-et-Loir to ensure a dive at the Défense Arena, six weeks before the big meeting. That of a lifetime for some. “People really don’t realize, insists co-captain, Charlotte Bonnet. These are years of work that we transcribe into a race between fifty seconds and four minutes. It’s complicated, you have to do everything possible to get there on the big day.” Launched into the last challenge of her career before putting away the wetsuit for good, the 29-year-old swimmer had the cup on Sunday in the 100m breaststroke and in the 100m freestyle on Tuesday. She can only hope for an individual selection in the 200m medley on Friday.
“I can’t sleep well anymore”
Everyone has known the “contract” for months: they must finish among the first two in the final of the event and simultaneously achieve (in heats for the 800m and 1,500m) the minimums set by the French Swimming Federation . The Odyssey has perhaps never lived up to its name so well. Since Sunday, the Chartres swimming pool has been the scene of tearful attacks as well as smiles of bliss, in front of its few thousand spectators softened by the humidity.
The spectacle sometimes comes from where we least expect it. Tuesday evening, in the 100m freestyle won by Maxime Grousset, his runner-up, Rafael Fente Damers, also qualified for the Olympics to everyone’s surprise. By tapping with joy on the water to celebrate his feat, the Annecy sprinter dislocated shoulder. Grimacing in pain, he had to be rescued to get out of the pool, climbed onto the second step of the podium as soon as his joint was back in place, before being taken to hospital for examinations.
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