Three months after a successful World Championships, the elite of French swimming meet in Angers from Thursday to Sunday for the French Short Course Championships, the opportunity to best launch the season which should lead them to the Olympic Games at home.

The French swimmers will evolve without their main medal provider, Léon Marchand, who alone brought home three titles from the Fukuoka Worlds. On the other hand, they will have in their ranks their other summer world champion, Maxime Grousset.

The competition, which takes place in a 25m swimming pool, should allow the Blues to gain momentum towards the European Short Course Championships next December in Bucharest.

“We are beginning a new stage in preparing swimmers to retest their skills and racing strategies as a major international confrontation approaches,” explains national technical director (DTN) Julien Issoulié. “With the major objective of this season being the Paris Games next summer, we are looking forward to the opportunity to do a series of races under pressure to test the swimmers’ ability to withstand it.”

On cloud nine since his world title in the 100m butterfly, Maxime Grousset is diving back in with desire after leaving to recharge his batteries at home in New Caledonia. Having become a new leader of the Blues, the 24-year-old swimmer has put together a busy program in Angers with no less than six individual races.

In three of them, the 50 and 100 m freestyle as well as the 50 m butterfly, he will meet his usual rival Florent Manaudou. The latter, who left the World Championships in the semi-finals, became aware of the mistakes made in Japan and hopes to take advantage of the Angevin competition to regain confidence.

In addition to the sprint duellists, we will also be watching the form of backstrokers Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, Mewen Tomac and Analia Pigrée. Charlotte Bonnet will also take the start of six races and will make her return to freestyle swimming, a specialty that she had somewhat neglected for a year.

The program:

Series from 9:30 a.m., finals from 6:00 p.m.