Florent Manaudou failed to find an explanation after his elimination in the semi-final of the 50m freestyle, his favorite race, at the World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka (Japan): “Frankly, I don’t know what is happened,” he said.
Manaudou, who wants to gain momentum by the Paris Olympics in 2024, finished last in his race with a time of 21 sec and 96/100th, the twelfth time in the halves.
“When I saw 21.9, it surprised me. I didn’t feel that bad. A little hard at 40 meters but I don’t know (what happened)”, he reacted.
The 32-year-old swimmer, triple Olympic medalist, however arrived in Japan with the third best performance of the year (21 sec 56), a time achieved at the French Championships in Rennes last month.
“(Compared to Rennes), I feel I have less strength, I can’t apply the strength I have. But frankly, I don’t know what happened, ”added Manaudou, who had taken the third time in the morning series in 21 sec 72.
“The times were rather reassuring, everything was fine,” added his trainer Quentin Coton. “It’s surprising, we did not expect it.”
For the coach, “it’s a blow to the head”. “He will inevitably have to make adjustments because we cannot be satisfied with that. We want it to go quickly so there are changes to be made,” he added.
Manaudou was eliminated at the same stage of the competition last year at the Budapest Worlds, a result more or less expected by the 2012 Olympic champion who was then in the middle of a post-Olympic sabbatical in Tokyo.
But this season, he got back in working order in view of the Paris Games and therefore harbored much greater ambitions.
The French nevertheless immediately put this poor performance into perspective. “It was not crazy but it does not matter, we take what there is to take. (…) I’m not even disappointed because it’s my level. I stopped being disappointed with bad races because no one died. We do sports, it’s cool. You don’t have to mope either.”
