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Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
The Tunisian legacy in men’s distance swimming dates back two decades to the days of Oussama Mellouli, who won an upset gold medal in the men’s 1500 freestyle at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, upending the two-time defending champion and one of the greatest distance swimmers in history, Grant Hackett.
Mellouli, who went on to win the 2009 world title and the 2012 Olympic bronze medal in the 1500, was followed by Ahmed Hafnaoui, who broke onto the scene with his surprise 400 free gold medal in Tokyo but followed up by claiming the 800 and 1500 free world titles last year with two of the fastest swims ever.
Despite Hafnaoui’s withdrawal from the upcoming Olympic Games, Tunisia won’t be without a threat in the 1500 in Paris, as Ahmed Jaouadi has thrown his name in the mix after a monster performance at the recently-concluded French Elite Championships.
Jaouadi, 19, made his presence known in the swimming community earlier this year when he dropped a time of 3:45.95 in the 400 free, well under the Olympic qualifying time (3:46.78) and nearly two seconds under his personal best.
At the French Elite Championships last week in the 1500 free, Jaouadi went head-to-head with France’s best and came out on top, pulling away from David Aubry and Damien Joly on the back half to touch first in a time of 14:48.69.
The swim for Jaouadi marked a seismic personal best, lowering his previous mark of 15:10.11 set in March at the Camille Muffat Giant Series meet. The swim moved him into 10th in the world rankings this season and 42nd all-time. His previous PB ranked 239th all-time.
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At the same competition, Jaouadi also dropped six seconds to claim victory in the 800 free, clocking 7:45.31 to give him three individual events at the Paris Olympics.
Although men’s distance swimming is arguably as deep as it’s ever been globally, and Jaouadi is still multiple seconds back of the big favorites heading to Paris, he cannot be underestimated with his rapid improvement curve…and what Hafnoaui did last time.
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Oh look. A near-unknown North African distance swimmer walks into a bar just before an Olympics..
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
Another Tunisian drug cheat
Mellouli tested positive and banned for 2 years, from 2006 to 2008, just a few weeks before the qualifying period for Beijing closed.
His 400 free silver and 800 gold from 2007 Melbourne World Championship were nullified.
He went on to beat Grant Hackett in Beijing.
If you were to tell me that in 2024 Ahmed Hafnaoui wasn’t even the best distance swimmer named Ahmed in his own country, I would’ve laughed.
Yet, here we are
Ah, my favorite future longhorn
Instagram indicates that he’s based in Martigues. If that is still accurate, it means he’s been training under Philippe Lucas. The list of distance and middle distance swimmers excelling under his tutelage over the years is long and impressive. Manadou & Pellegrini are the most notable. Later, Van Rouwendaal, Muller, Olivier, Aubry, & Cassignol did long stints with Lucas before moving on to train in Germany (Van Rouwendaal) & Italy (Cassignol, Aubry, Olivier).
Those that stayed on board (Fontaine, Kirpichnikova, Velly, Bricout) will provide lots for him to work with. He will only get better.
Gotta love and respect Philippe Lucas. Also the stories you hear from his training makes you think Human Rights Watch would be on alert
You got a big laugh out of me on that! The infamous Amaury Leveaux video comes to mind. Hilarious.
A few things I failed to mention. He also trained Olympic gold medalist Camelia Potec & the current world record holder for the English Channel, Andreas Waschburger. I believe Waschburger trained with Lucas when the training base was in Montpelier, several years ago. Not sure if he was with Lucas in Narbonne, which was the training base prior to Montpelier.
Potec went to Lucas after her Olympic win in 2004 in the 200 free. It was a slow 1:58.0 and she won from lane one. Everyone thought it was a fluke and she was determined to prove them wrong. She was already 22 when she won, but she swam her fastest at 26-27, becoming a formidable distance freestyler after giving up on the 200. She retired with best times of 4:03/8:16/15:52 and her 8:19 in 800 prelims in 2008 would have won her silver behind Adlington but she overswam and ended up fourth in the final.
You are correct.
Potec was one of the fittest swimmers I’ve ever seen. Lucas appeared to be trying to do the same thing with Pellegrini as he did with Potec. That is, getting her in phenomenal shape, and creating a broader range of events. Because of the conditioning, they had the ability to change gears as well.
That said, Potec had more range, all the way up to the 1500. Lucas had Pellegrini focusing on the 200 & 400, but she also did the 800 periodically when she was with him.
So many icnonic quotes from that video. “Regarde cette putain de caméra, Champion du Monde de mes couilles.” and “Même Pellegrini elle me faisait ça, je lui crache dessus.” are my personal favourites.
I’ve watched it a few times. Funny, but stunningly harsh as well. The Pellegrini quote is classic.
His is a high performance program, perhaps a higher volume version of Dean Boxall’s program in Australia. Both coaches have big hearts and care about their swimmers, but don’t waste their time.
This is more recent, from late 2022. Lucas is more understated and mellow here.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdgUAvMc3d4
Tunisian distance swimmers are inevitable
“We’ve got Ahmed at home”
Ahmed at home:
Also, I think Hafnaoui was also 3:45/7:45 for the 400/800 going into the Tokyo Olympics…spicy parallels
He’s been flying under the radar, but those are some impressive times considering he just turned 19. Could play spoiler–maybe not this year, but he could contend for medals soon