French swimmer and Olympic Champion Yannick Agnel is swimming his first meet since moving to North Baltimore and training with the great Bob Bowman this week at the NBAC Mid-Summer Invite.
He scratched the 100 and 200 free on Monday morning, but in the 400 on Sunday he swam for a 200 free split. His name has been removed from official results online, and the splits have been removed from his Meet Mobile result, but those at the meet told us that he split a 1:48 in the 200 free en route to a 4:05.08 winning time in the 400 free. 2nd place went to Brandon Flynn in 4:05.76.
Agnel, as of now, is not ascribed to swim any individual events at the World Championships; he pulled out of his individual swims in the 100 and 200 frees as local media reports have swirled that he is rethinking that decision. This wouldn’t be the first time that Agnel has pulled out of a World Championship race, only to be reentered. This wouldn’t be the first time that he has pulled a bait-and-switch on his events; remember that in 2011, Agnel gave the same reasons of an illness interrupting his training to drop the 400 free at the World Championships. He ended up entering the event anyway and finishing 6th at that meet.
Agnel is the defending Olympic gold medalist in the 200 free.
Full, live meet results available here (which don’t include Agnel’s swim).
In the press pack of the French swimming federation for the Barcelona world championships, we have Yannick Agnel in the 100 free and in the 200 free. I don’t know if it means something but it’s just a news.
http://www.ffnatation.fr/html/presse/201.pdf
I really don’t know what to expect from him in 2 weeks. It can be awful as it can be good. We’ll see.
I hope for you, for France, and swimming in general it will be good rather than awful, but who knows…
Being so secretive about his times would not seem to suggest someone full of confidence.
Seriously, all these questions about the French team so close to the world championships begin to irritate me! 😡
The meet is in 12 days and :
– I still don’t know the real shape of Yannick Agnel.
– I still don’t know if Mr Agnel will swim on individual.
– if he only swims the relays, I still don’t know if he will be replaced.
– I still don’t know who will be the fourth guy in the men’s 4X200 free relay.
– perhaps I will soon update my relay predictions! 😆
My only question is why is all of this necessary??????????? It makes no sense. Ok, so you are not in top shape. Give yourself a break. It is only one year after the Olympic Games and EVERYONE deserves a little down time from the previous years craziness. But this secrecy is ridiculous.
It’s very complex. Very French I’d say.
Yes, being secretive and abnormal in this way is a bad sign. This is damaging to France’s golden age of swimming and it adds expectations on Muffat’s shoulders.
Agnel is swimming scared. This is not the move of a champion.
I would love to know if Phelps has dropped in on some of Agnel’s workouts at NBAC. Ah, to be the pull-bouy floating so innocently in the water if that were to happen.
Perhaps the move was to avoid the French media. Pretty sure this is the truth
It’s a good move, I’d say.
Many swimmers had their career shortened under immense media scrutiny. Laure Manadou and Thorpe come to mind.
Under a clever and nice guy appearance a huge pretention ?
Some rumors from France describe a changing attitude since the Olympics victory…
Who really knows ? But yes, for this meet a weird attitude, very condescending !
haha he scratched the 200 free and 100 free only to enter the 400 free and swim a 200 split. His name was taken off the results page and his split was taken off the meet mobile. Sneaky sneaky sneaky. Does anyone else find this hilarious?
No. It seems on the surface to be manipulative & rather insulting to the meet.
I find it baffling.
Why would he be so secretive about it?
if he wanted to be this secretive then couldn’t he just time himself in practice? i mean just saying, he could get similar conditions
Yes, that’s what I am baffled about.
And it’s not like this meet provide any competition for him anyway.
i’ve always thought breaking biedermanns records was a top priority for bowman, hence why this move did not surprise me at all
totally makes sense ! That WR is a rubber WR . Beiderman never got close to 1.44 since 2009 . Agnel is the only guy to get it soon or later .
Biedermann swam a 1:44.88 and a 3:44.14 in 2011.
That’s a far cry from 1:42 flat and 3:40
You’re right. You can’t argue with the numbers. Without the rubber, Biederman was a great world class swimmer. WITH the rubber he was untouchable.
I’d love to see Agnel breaks that WR, but going 1:41+ takes an unbelievable effort.
That means 50 going out and 51+ going back on the foot.
I dunno, although Agnel has immense talent and will be coached by the greatest coach in the world, I’m still not overly optimistic it will happen.
When Biedermann set that world record, he was a 47.3 (ish, based on his 46.8 relay split) 100m freestyler, and a 3:40.0 400 freestyler. It may not work exactly this way, given that the suits were a factor, but Agnel must plan on being about to match both ends of the spectrum to take down Biedermann’s record. When I saw that swim, I knew it would take a swim of the ages to do it.
I have full confidence that Agnel can have a 47.3 100 freestyle OR a 339 400 freestyle, but the trick is to do it simultaneously.
I don’t think Agnel can do both 47.3 and 3:39 simultaneously.
There is a reason why 100-400 free double is among the hardest to attempt successfully in men (or women) swimming.
I’m sometimes wondering why is it so important to break rubber suit records? I’d suggest a bit change in thinking. The rubber suit records were achieved under different rules. Why we cannot just accept that and be happy with lists of textile bests?
Uwe Hohn throwed 104.80m with a old javelin. It’s also a world record!
Maybe FINA has screwed this one up again. If FINA ranked official textile bests as world records in textile side by side with rubber suit records, it might alleviate the pain for many and help them live with two lists of records achieved under the different rules. Just like they’ve done in Javelin.
The current system which recognizes officially just one records leads… Read more »
I agree. Many have proposed that FINA maintain parallel WR lists, and merge them when they are unified (eg. w200 back, m200IM).
Swimvortex have written long articles about why FINA should do it and it has been done in the 50s with the unification of yard and meter record.
And we should remember that breaking WR bring monetary rewards from FINA, and thus FINA should recognize those swimmers who break textile WR and not punish them for FINA’s fault in creating and maintaining the rubber fiasco of 2008-2009.