Maxime Grousset Rips 22.74 50 Fly Heats Swim On Day One Of French Championships

2025 FRENCH ELITE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Saturday, June 14th – Thursday, June 19th
• Prelims at 8am local (2am ET)/Finals at 6pm local (Noon ET)
• Montpellier, France
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• Entries
• Live Results

The 2025 French Elite Championships kicked off today with the competition representing the primary qualification opportunity for the nation’s athletes to add their names to the World Championships roster.

As a reminder, 4-time Olympic champion Leon Marchand was granted an exception whereby he raced at the Longhorn Aquatics Elite Invite last month to earn his Singapore bids.

At that meet, 22-year-old Marchand registered a time of 4:07.11 in the 400m IM, 3:48.62 in the 400m free and 2:08.25 in the 200m breast, qualifying for Singapore in the 4IM and 2breast.

For those racing here, the times below represent the qualification standards for the World Championships as well as for the U23 Championships taking place in Slovakia later this month.

This morning’s session began with the women’s 200m IM with Cyrielle Duhamel taking the top seed in a smooth mark of 2:15.43.

Joining her under the 2:16 barrier was Roos Vanotterdijk of Belgium, who will flank Duhamel in tonight’s final, courtesy of her morning outing of 2:15.97.

Camille Tissandie will be on the other side as a result of her 2:17.49 this morning.

Duhamel, Tissandie and the other French competitors will be chasing a qualification mark of 2:11.47, a time Duhamel has been under twice.

Her personal best rests at the 2:10.84 logged in Tokyo to place 11th out of the Olympic semi-final and her 2nd-swiftest outing checks in at the 2:11.11 notched in the prelims at that same competition. The former result rendered her France’s 3rd-best performer in history.

Vanotterdijk doubled up by also racing the women’s 100m butterfly prelims this morning.

In that sprint, the 20-year-old national record holder staked her claim with a 3rd-seeded time of 58.82.

That sits less than half a second behind leader Lilou Ressencourt who landed lane 4 for tonight’s final in 58.38 while Marie Wattel split the pair in 58.76.

Maty Ndoye-Brouard is also in the mix, having notched 59.82 to claim the 4th seed.

Ressencourt, who competes for the Cal Bears in the NCAA, has already been as quick as 58.36 this year from when she earned bronze at the Monte Carlo stop of the Mare Nostrum Tour.

Vanotterdijk’s season best checks in at the 57.05 Belgian standard she produced at April’s Swim Open Stockholm to represent the world’s 7th-swiftest performer thus far.

28-year-old veteran David Aubry put his hat in the ring for the men’s 400m freestyle, establishing himself as the top seed with a morning mark of 3:52.12.

That held off Pierre Largeron, who nabbed the second seed in 3:52.87, followed by Tunisian Rami Rahmouni, who captured the third slot in 3:53.56.

Aubry owns a lifetime best of 3:46.40 and he’ll need to be right around that caliber of performance in order to clear the stiff QT of 3:46.78.

Rahmouni, who is just 16 years of age, has been ripping personal bests left and right already this year, including a big-time 7:52.80 in the 800m free.

The men’s 50 fly saw World Championships gold medalist Maxime Grousset hold nothing back as the 26-year-old scorched a swim of 22.74 to take the top seed.

That performance was already only .02 outside the Olympian’s lifetime best and French national record of 22.72 from 2023.

Just like that, Grousset inserts himself into slot #3 on the season’s world rankings.

Michel Arkhangelsky of Russia was next to the wall in 22.97, a shiny new PB, while Nikita Baez nabbed the 3rd seed in 23.54.

Additional Notes

• Olympian Anastasia Kirpichnikova clocked a time of 4:12.93 to lead the women’s 400m freestyle heats. She’ll need to post at least a mark of 4:07.90 to qualify for the World Championships, a threshold under which the former Russian swimmer has been on 3 occasions.
• It was visiting Japanese swimmer Yamato Okadome who grabbed the top spot in the men’s 100m breast, putting up a time of 1:00.77. That holds a .10 advantage over Jeremie Delbois who touched in 1:00.87 followed by Carl Aitkaci who turned in a time of 1:00.91. A benchmark of 59.49 is what it will take French swimmers to qualify for Singapore. That’s a tough ask for the nation who has only seen 3 men ever get under that standard. Hugues Duboscq (58.64, 2009), Leon Marchand (59.06, 2024) and Theo Bussiere (59.46, 2018) have done it and none of them are racing.