Blume’s 24.31 Sets Up 50 Free Clash On Final Night In Marseille

FFN GOLDEN TOUR – MARSEILLE

• Friday, March 19th – Sunday, March 21st
• Marseille, France
• LCM (50m)
• Entries
• Day 1 Prelims/Day 1 Finals
• Day 2 Prelims/Day 2 Finals
• Results

The final day of the FFN Golden Tour stop in Marseille is upon us, and we’re set-up to be treated to some prestigious racing coming tonight’s final. Based on this morning’s heats, there will be a tough hill to climb to the top of the women’s 50m free and 200m free, while the men’s 400m free and 100m free are among the top races to watch.

As for the women’s splash n’ dash, reigning Olympic champion Pernille Blume of Denmark got on the board with the fastest AM time of 24.31. That checked in nearly half a second ahead of the next-closest swimmer of Melanie Henique of the host nation who scored 24.79, while Dutch Olympian Femke Heemskerk rounded out the top 3 in 24.95.

With the final yet to come tonight, Blume’s prelims outing already ranks among the top 5 performances this season.

The women’s 200m free also saw heavy-hitters among the contestants, with French national record holder Charlotte Bonnet snagging lane 4 in one of two sub-2:00 times of the field. Posting 1:59.59 this morning, Bonnet will be flanked by Slovenia’s Janja Segel who touched in 1:59.97.

Italy’s Olympic icon Federica Pellegrini is right there in the mix as well with 2:00.20, while Russia’s Anna Egorova lurks as the 7th-seeded swimmer in 2:01.37. Egorova was already victorious in the 400m free earlier at this meet.

Moving on to the men’s 100m free, Frenchman Maxime Grousset threw down a quick morning effort of 48.77 to stake his claim on the gold, while teammate Clement Mignon was also swift and under 49-seconds in 48.92.

Mehdy Metella, still coming back to form post-shoulder surgery, rounded out the top 3 this morning in 49.13 to make it a run most likely among these 3 for the gold.

Additional Top Seeds:

• Domestic swimmer Marie Wattel leads the women’s 100m fly field with a solid 59.13 to 2nd-seeded Maaike de Waard of the Netherlands who clocked 59.36
• On-fire Arizona State University commit Leon Marchand already collected a new national record in the men’s 400m IM last night and today the Frenchman topped the 200m fly field in 1:57.66. That time is already approaching his PB of 1:56.63 from last December.
• Breaststroking maestro Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands led the men’s 100m breaststroke easily with a casual, yet head-turning time of 59.09 this morning.
• Mewen Tomac topped newly-minted 200m backstroke national record holder Yohann Ndoye Brouard in teh 50m back, 25.11 to 25.52.
• Kira Toussaint clocked 2:12.58 to lead the women’s 200m backstroke this morning, while Joris Bouchaut registered 3:48.88 as the only men’s 400m free racer under 3:50. Lithuania’s national record holder Danas Rapsys lurks as the 4thseeded in a cool morning warm-up of 3:53.00.