Florent Manaudou has medaled in the last 4 Olympic 50 Freestyles, winning gold in 2012, silver in 2016 and 2020, and now bronze at his home Olympics in Paris. It hasn’t been an easy path for the sprint legend though.
Florent starts by speaking honestly about his emotional highs and lows coming off of the Olympics. He is already back in the pool training with the goal of competing at the 2024 Short Course World Championships and ultimately the 2026 European Championships in Paris.
He goes on to recount his 2023-24 season leading up to the Paris Olympics. Manaudou admits he had been miserable for much of his career, only focusing on the outcome of his performances and diving into a depression when they didn’t go his way. This year, Manaudou took more ownership of his swimming, doing what he wanted in and out of the pool to keep his body and brain healthy and happy.
Hard not to be a fan of Flo after an interview like that – funny, introspective, knowledgeable about the sport, complimentary towards his competitors.
4 career medals in an individual event is nuts.
I’m digging the mustache
With that man’s testosterone, it probably took about 12 hours to grow after a clean shave.
That 50 free podium was probably the best of the games, so many great stories capped off with a happy ending by them medaling.
Did he address (or has he addressed previously) what happened between him and Pernille Blume? SwimSwam announced their engagement a few years ago, but it seems from trying to parse certain French language news sites that they have split up and he’s found a new main squeeze.
It’s the swimswam podcast my guy, not swim tabloids.
My glorious king
great interview and so candid. seems like a scholar of swimming too, that Soni ‘09 reference made me laugh
When I saw him at the Paris Olympics, I could not hide my amazement.His muscles were toned, arguably the best I have seen in his career.
Is this Andrew’s burner account? I need Steve Nolan to bonk this commentor
Nice job, Coleman!
I was very impressed with Florent’s English — right down to the idioms he used! I guess he had no problem understanding Bob.