2014 French Long Course National Championships
- Dates: Tuesday, April 8 – Sunday, April 13, 2014; prelims 9:00 am, semis/ finals 5:00 pm
- Location: Chartres, France (GMT +1, or 6 hours ahead of N.Y., 9 ahead of L.A.)
- Results: Available Here
- Televised: Eurosport France
- Championship Central
Meet previews Part One and Part Two
Day One finals recap
Day Two: Wednesday, April 9 – Finals Contested:
Men’s 800 free: The elite (senior national) meet kicked off with the top ten seeds of the men’s 800 free. The fastest time coming out of the morning heats had been 8:07.37 from Charlie Cuignet of Toulouse. In the evening heat 2013 fourth-place finisher Anthony Pannier (Sarcelles) took it out first and led wire-to-wire, eventually touching in 7:56.11, a couple of seconds off his seed time.
This wasn’t the fastest 800 free final on record at French Nationals, but then again the Euro qualifying standard, at 8:04.2, was pretty generous. France’s top three distance swimmers, Pannier, defending champion Damien Joly (Antibes), and Joris Bouchaut (Toulouse) could pretty much cruise to qualification. As it turns out they finished first, fourth (8:01.02), and second (7:57.53), respectively. Coming in third, and qualifying for Berlin, was Axel Reymond of Le Plessis-Savigny, thanks to an 8-second drop for his first sub-8, 7:58.45.
Just for a little perspective, the French national record in the 800 is 7:48.28, set by Sébastien Rouault in 2010.
Women’s 200 back: Top-seeded Cloé Credeville (Marseille) won in 2:12.55. Although she was almost three seconds slower than her seed time she was nonetheless 1.5 faster than a year ago, when she finished second to Evelyn Verraszto of Hungary. Fantine Lesaffre touched second with 2:13.63, a second faster than her seed time and 2.5 better than last year. Both women qualified for Euros. Just missing the Berlin cutoff but earning a spot on the podium was third-place Justine Ress in 2:14.91, a 1.5-second improvement from her seed time.
Men’s 100 back: The matchup of the night pitted 2012 Olympic co-champions Camille Lacourt (Marseille) and Jérémy Stravius (Amiens) against each other for yet the nth time. While they turned virtually together at the 50, Stravius 26.48 and Lacourt 26.49, in the end it was Lacourt who got to stand alone on the top step winning 53.73 to 53.86. Benjamin Stasiulis (Marseille) took third with 54.83, while Eric Ress was fourth. Ress just missed the Berlin selection; although he entered the meet with 54.94 and swam 55.21 in semi-finals, his 55.25 final swim missed the cutoff by .01. With the exception of Florian Joly (Toulouse), the entire ten-lane championship final was off their seed times. Lacourt and Stravius still slip in to the world’s top 10 ranking for 2014, although we’ll see how long they stay there with all the national championships taking place over the next week or so.
A French national age group record was broken in one of the junior finals: Kryls Miatti of Mulhouse established the new standard for 15-year-old boys with his 58.72 final swim. The old record of 59.36 had stood since 2011. Miatti, who took silver in the boys’ 15-6 category, went 1:00.67 in prelims and 59.42 in semis.
Men’s 100 breast: Defending champ and French record-holder in the 50 breast Giacomo Perez Dortoma of Marseille won the 100 in a closer-than-expected race with Antibes teammates Thomas Dahlia and Quentin Coton. Coming in with a seed time of 1:00.55 to their respective 1:02.11 and 1:02.45, Perez Dortoma was expected to dominate the race. The trio finished in 1:01.20 – 1:01.60 – 1:01.88 and all qualified for Berlin.
The future of French breaststroke was on display as two young men set national age group records in Chartres. In prelims, seventeen-year-old Jean Dencausse of Toulouse went 1:02.64 to finish fourth overall and break his own national record for 17-year-old boys (1:02.73). He broke it again in semis, going 1:01.94. He was just off that time in finals, but did manage to finish fourth in the men’s open race.
Meanwhile, Tanguy Lesparre of Cannes took down in spectaclular fashion one of the oldest 15-year-old records on the books: a 1:06.45 100 breast from 1989. Lesparre broke it the first time with his 1:05.94 prelims swim. He then lowered it twice: 1:05.35 in semis and 1:05.04 to win the 15-16 final.
Day Two: Wednesday, April 9 – Semi-Finals Contested:
Women’s 100 fly: Evelyn Verraszto of Hungary (59.65) and Nice teammates Camille Muffat (59.69) and Marie Wattel (59.75) are teed up for an exciting final tomorrow night.
Men’s 200 IM: David Verraszto (Hungary, 2:01.06), Jeremy Desplanches (Switzerland, 2:03.45), Romain Landry (Toulouse, 2:03.68), and Ganesh Pedurand (Toulouse, 2:03.86) were the top qualifiers for tomorrow’s final.
Women’s 100 breast: Charlotte Bonnet (Nice, 1:09.48), Claire Polit (Montpellier, 1:10.18), Coralie Daubral (Montauban, 1:10.53) led the way after semis in the 100 breast.
Men’s 200 free: Grégory Mallet of Marseille earned the middle lane with his 1:48.27 semi-final swim. On either side will be Yannick Agnel (1:48.42) and Théo Fuchs of Amiens (1:48.92).
Women’s 100 free: In a tough double, Nice’s Muffat had the top 100 free time out of semi-finals with 54.73. Teammates Anna Santamans, Bonnet, and Chloé Hache will also contest the championship final.
James Guy threw down a 3:45 400 for a new British Record.
Wow! Crazy fast times there!
Sorry. I believed that James Guy swam that time in Eindhoven. I forgot there are the British trials this week. 🙂
Eindhoven, Japan, Great Britain, France, New Zealand, Italy. 🙄
Hard to follow all the results.
Don’t forget Spain.
Yes, I forgot Spain! 🙂
And South Africa! 😆
Such is the quality of the Trials these two weeks that Sjostrom’s 24.15 is so far the most surprising swim of the season.
I can’t wait to see what she’ll swim in the 100 free!
I bet that hurt Ranomi, being beaten in her home pool. She will have a score to settle in the 100.
Cate Campbell is still a long way ahead of everyone else, but maybe Sarah can get close. It’s hard to know what to expect from her.
57.78 isn’t a bad time for Jeanette in the 100 fly, half a second from her best time, but perhaps I was expecting her to be a little faster given that she has tapered for this meet, she swam a 58.10 2 weeks ago with no rest.
And it won’t register on the international scale, but a good PB for Daniel Steen Andersen in the 50 fly with 24.06.
I believed that Cate Campbell was alone on her sprint planet.
Yes she is still the girl to beat but Miss Sjöström is getting closer and closer.
However, I don’t see Sarah Sjöström beat a fresh Cate Campbell in the 100 free at a big world meet if she swims the 100 fly and the 200 free before.
You can’t be tired to beat her!
The women’s 100 free is going to be crazy interesting in the years to come.
We have seen at the last Australian Championships that Bronte Campbell had improved a lot.
Ranomi is still present.
And I don’t forget the young Simone Manuel. She destroyed her best times in… Read more »
I have repeatedly said that an ideal events for sjoestrom at Worlds/Olympics would be:
100 fly – 100 free – 50 free, and the relays.
Sarah seems to never swim amazing times across the board at a single meet. A few weeks ago she had a great 100fly, and 200free but had mediocre 100free and 50free. At this meet she had a great 50free and hohum 100fly. I wonder why that is…
Men’s 200 IM final
1. David Verraszto (Hungary) in 1.59.92
2. Ganesh Pedurand is the French champion in 2.02.50 😥 😥
When Stravius doesn’t swim that event, it’s really pathetic. 😥
Women’s 100 fly final
1. Camille Muffat in 58.34
2. Marie Wattel in 59.40
Camille is really the ray of light of this day. 🙂
Great double 100 free/100 fly!
New PB in the 100 fly.
She has the speed!
Men’s 50 back final
1. Camille Lacourt in 24.37
2. Jérémy Stravius in 24.80.
I’m not a great fan of the 50s of stroke but it’s a huge performance by Camille Lacourt.
Perhaps the first wow… Read more »
Women’s 100 free final
1. Camille Muffat in 54.08
2. Charlotte Bonnet in 54.62
Good performance for Miss Muffat. She improves her times slowly but surely.
We can expect a good 200 free tomorrow. Not fantastic but good. 1.55 high/1.56 low. It would be great because she trains seriously and full time only since January.
Men’s 50 free final
1. Florent Manaudou in 21.70
The rest is very far behind. 22.43 and more. 😥
Day 3 results so far.
Women’s 800 free final
1. Coralie Balmy in 8.29.18
After her they are in 8.42 and more. 😥
Men’s 200 free final
1. Yannick Agnel in 1.45.63
After him they are in 1.48 and more. 😥
Agnel swims the same kind of times he did in Austin last January.
3.49 in the 400 free
1.45 high in the 200 free
Women’s 100 breast final
1. Charlotte Bonnet and Claire Polit with the same time of 1.09.25. 😥
Quel dommage…
It sounds a bit like the average Danish domestic championships to be honest 🙂
Your girls, except Lotte Friis, were fast recently at the Danish Open. RMP, Nielsen, Blume, Ottesen. Don’t complain too much! 🙂
Heh, I won’t complain about that, but more that like your championships the gap to the next place is often huge because there is no depth.
I am hoping ‘my’ girls are going to do something special in Eindhoven this weekend, although I wonder why Jeanette hasn’t swum in the 50 free semis. I have been looking forward to the next clash of her and Pernille for who gets to be Danish top dog 🙂
24.59 for Pernille in the 50 free semis, 3rd in the final with 24.73. She is very very close to Jeanette’s shiny suit Danish record! She is really very impressive this year.
Very impressive Pernille Blume.
Perhaps I’m wrong but it looks like she’s the only swimmer who left Fabrice Pellerin in Nice and swims faster then. Much faster in her case.
For Agnel and Friis we’ll see next summer but it’s not fantastic so far.
Weird she didn’t like the Mediterranean climate. 🙂
Your medley relay looks better day after day.
Hopefully you will beat the Russians at the European championships.
Hopefully you will crush the Russians at the European championships. 🙂
Boring day 2.
Slow times.
It looks like most of the big names keep the best for the summer and are in Chartres just to qualify.
The times required by the federation to qualify for Berlin are very easy to do.
Stravius and Lacourt have a so big margin that they can qualify easily event at only 80%.
The winner of the men’s 100 breast in 1.01! 😥
The winner of the women’s 200 back in 2.12! 😥
We’ll see in the next days but it’s pretty boring so far.
Hopefully Agnel will wake up these championships today in the 200 free final.
Yeah I think the super slow qualifying times contribute to the slow times so far. All the top swimmers must have looked at the qualifying times and giggled and then only swam the necessary times, it also helped that there is no depth in France swimming so the top swimmers can just loaf.
Lacourt and Stravius were co-champions at World Champs in 2011, no?
Yes, while Stravius has stayed in France for training, Lacourt went to Australia to train in the past year.