It’s the story of a sprinter who swims a 100m butterfly for the first time in a world championship and finds himself a gold medalist less than a minute later with the fifth fastest time in history. Fifty seconds precisely. On Saturday July 29, Maxime Grousset achieved a masterstroke for his first attempt, at Marine Messe in Fukuoka (Japan) – ahead of Canadian Josh Liendo (50 s 34) and American Dare Rose (50 s 46).
“That’s it, here is finally the long-awaited gold medal, reacted Grousset, who had taken silver (in 100m) and bronze (in 50m) at the 2022 Worlds in Budapest. I hadn’t really prepared for this race, if at all. »
At the start, this 100m butterfly was only supposed to be a recreation this season for the 24-year-old sprinter, not really a line of work – unlike the 50m butterfly, a distance over which he took 3rd place in the pool. Japanese – let alone a podium horizon.
A “crazy” in Rennes mid-June
And then, six weeks ago, a simple race shattered all his certainties. On June 16, at the French championships, in Rennes, the swimmer from the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (Insep) broke Mehdy Metella’s French record by swimming in 50 s 61 in the cauldron Breton. “Max swam this race because it was the last day and he had nothing to do, he said to me: ‘hey, there’s the 100 pap’ on the program, why not, I’ll go and I’m going to break the French record,'” says Michel Chrétien, his coach who welcomed him to Amiens in 2016 when the 1.92m teenager left the lagoons of his native New Caledonia.
His time in Rennes places him above all in second place in the world for the season, behind the Canadian Joshua Liendo (50 s 36). “It’s crazy,” he whispered, in the Breton capital, still dripping. Because this time would simply have offered him a world silver medal in Budapest in 2022, behind Kristof Milak (50 s 14). The Hungarian, who achieved the double at home by being crowned world champion in the 200m butterfly, is one of the big absentees in Japan, plagued by mental health problems, like the Briton Adam Peaty and the American Caeleb Dressel, who is just sticking her head out of the water.
So when Michel Chrétien’s student boarded the plane for Japan, in his head he was determined to check off this 100m butterfly from his already extensive program, along with the 50m butterfly and the 50m and 100m m freestyle. His coach immediately turned his brain upside down when faced with an equation with two unknowns. How was his swimmer – who had never chained three races in the 100m butterfly before – he was going to manage to reconcile the final of the 100m butterfly and that of the 50m freestyle, scheduled in the Fukuoka basin thirty-three minutes from ‘gap ? Should we favor one event over the other or accumulate experience by chaining the two, at the risk of missing out on a medal?
Ideas for the Paris 2024 Games
The two men did not decide until Friday morning, a few hours before the 50m freestyle heats and after his bronze medal in the “queen race” the day before. The dilemma was Cornelian. “It was hard, yes, to make this decision, knowing that I made a podium last year in Budapest in the 50m crawl”, admitted Grousset. But he ultimately chose to flit back and forth rather than crawl the one-way “because [he felt] there [was] something to do.” “And that I’m having fun this year on 100 pap. I made a choice and I will assume it, ”he justified again.
The bet was successful. Saturday evening, he was the first surprised by his time. “It’s a very big time. And again, I’m not having a perfect race, there are still things to improve to really crush the competition, he said, his sparkling eyes already riveted on the Paris 2024 Games. maybe add it to my workout routine…”
It is an understatement to say that the young man learns quickly. With a flapping of its wings, the Grousset caterpillar transformed into a butterfly.
