2020 FRENCH ELITE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, December 10th – Sunday, December 13th
- Saint-Raphaël, France
- LCM (50m)
- Olympic Qualifying Meet
- French Olympic Qualifying Procedures
- SwimSwam Preview
- Start Lists
- Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
- Day 2 Prelims Recap/Day 2 Finals Recap
- Day 3 Prelims Recap/Day 3 Finals Recap
- Day 4 Prelims Recap
- Live Results
The final day of the 2020 French Elite Championships brought us another Olympic qualifier, as Marie Wattel accomplished the task in the women’s 100m fly.
After establishing herself as the top-seeded swimmer of the morning heats with a swift 57.92, Wattel cranked out a winning effort of 57.40 to seal the deal. Splitting 26.77/30.63, Wattel crushed the only sub-58 second time of the field en route to topping the podium. Her outing cleared the FFN’s qualification standard of 57.51 needed to punch a ticket to Tokyo.
For perspective, a time of 57.00 is what Wattel threw down in the semifinals at last year’s World Championships before settling for 8th in 57.29 come the final.
Tonight, it was ISL superstar Beryl Gastaldello who took runner-up in a mark of 58.09, with some work to do to near the qualification time. However, the intense Olympic preparation long course season is just getting started.
The other notable swim came from visiting Swiss ace Jeremy Desplanches, with the national record holder punching a result of 1:57.76 in the men’s 200m IM. Desplanches owns the Swiss national standard at the 1:56.56 he threw down in Gwangju last year to snag silver in the World Championships final.
The top French finisher in this evening’s 200m IM final was young Leon Marchand, with the ASU-commit claiming his 3rd medal of this meet with a time of 2:01.29.
Additional Winners:
- David Aubrey was tonight’s 1500m freestyle winner, clinching the gold in 15:00.08 to just edge out Dunkirk Swimming’s Marc-Antoine Olivier who finished in 15:00.59.
- The men’s 50m breast saw Theo Bussiere clocked 27.70 to take the men’s 50m breast gold, while Yohann Ndoye Brouard found success as the fastest men’s 50m back swimmer in 24.94.
- 50m freestyle Olympic champion Florent Manaudou dropped the 100m free today, which left Maxime Grousset more open space to claim the top seed this morning in 48.67. He nearly matched that time exactly en route to gold this evening, touching in 48.65.
- Russia’s Anastasia Kirpichnikova completed her trifecta of freestyle victories, adding the women’s 400m free to her 800m and 1500m gold medals here. She finished tonight’s race in 4:08.58 after registering 4:08.36 in this morning’s heats.