He didn’t see it coming. Barely out of the pool, Friday evening July 28, Florent Manaudou appeared in front of the journalists with a smile on his face, but struck as rarely. The London Olympic champion in 2012 will not compete in the 50m freestyle final, the only event in which he was entered individually at the Fukuoka Worlds. The Frenchman finished last in his race, with the 12th time in the semi-finals (21 seconds 96). Far, very far from his personal best (21 seconds 19), established in Kazan (Russia) in 2015.

Hot, the captain of the Blues did not understand the reasons for his sinking. “Honestly, I don’t know what happened. I have no idea, insisted the swimmer with dyed blond hair. When I touch and I don’t see the light under my cone, I say to myself: “well, it must pass, I must be 4th or 5th”. But when I looked up and saw I was 8th, I knew it was going to be tough…”

At the beginning of the year, the bad weather that was accumulating plunged him into doubt. Manaudou then overhauled everything to try to take up the last great challenge of his career in the pools: winning a fourth Olympic medal in Paris in 2024 in the 50m, after gold in 2012 and silver in 2016. in Rio and in 2021 in Tokyo. The 32-year-old swimmer called on his British mentor, James Gibson, to support his tandem of coaches (and friends) in Antibes, Quentin Coton and Yoris Grandjean, from a distance. With Thomas Sammut, his mental trainer, and Mathieu Burban as technical consultant to complete his team.

“There’s no need to mope either”

At the French championships in Rennes, mid-June, he was completely reassured, swimming 21 seconds 56, the third world performance of the year. “Maybe between the French championships and here [in Japan], you had to work differently. I don’t know, I’ll see with James, Quentin and Yoris…”

Last year at the Budapest Worlds, Manaudou had already taken the door in the semi-finals of the one-way trip. But he had made 2022 a year of transition and knew why it had come to this. In all transparency, he had conceded a lack of attendance. “It proves that talent is not enough and that you have to work. I have worked less so it does not pass, “he said in the Hungarian capital.

This time, since his arrival in Japan, no lights were orange, let alone red. Quentin Coton seems just as disoriented as his swimmer. “We are surprised, we are all very disappointed, we did not expect it, he admitted. From the dive, I tell myself that there is something wrong, he does not have too much speed when he resumes swimming. In the warm-up, the times were rather reassuring. There’s bound to be something technical that’s not good…” And the coach continued: “We’re going to have to make adjustments, we can’t be satisfied with that, because the goal isn’t to swim 21 50 seconds, we want it to go fast. You can’t swim slower at 35 strokes [during the heats on Friday morning, with a time of 21 seconds 72], than at 33 [in the semi-finals], it’s not possible…”

The “gorilla”, the nickname of the 1.99 m swimmer (for 99 kg), prefers to put things into perspective. “I didn’t feel that bad, but that’s okay. I stopped being disappointed with bad races because no one died, we just play sports, that’s all. You don’t have to mope either. »

Quentin Coton also wants to believe that Manaudou will recover from this “blow to the head”. “As they say, champions are capable of bouncing back, and if there’s one who can do that, it’s Flo. »