Going into the final day of French Nationals there was a great deal of excitement surrounding both the women’s and men’s 200 Freestyle.
In the women’s event Camille Muffat who on Friday broke the world record in the 800 Freestyle was looking to redeem herself after swimming a very pedestrian 400 Freestyle on Saturday.
She did not disappoint.
After the first 100 meters she was more than a second ahead of the world record pace set by Federica Pellegrini in 2009. After turning at 150 meters it looked like the 23 year old Muffat was going leave the meet with not one, but two world records. Unfortunately in the last 50 meters Muffat hit the proverbial wall closing with a final split of 29.14, a full second slower than that of Pellegrini’s and finished in a national record time of 1:51.65 which was 48 one-hundreths of second short of the record.
Muffat 25.81 53.79 (27.98) 1:22.51 (28.72) 1:51.65 (29.14)
Pellegrini 26.58 54.84 (28.26) 1:23.09 (28.25) 1:51.17 (28.08)
It was deja vu all over again when Yannick Agnel hit the water in the men’s 200. On the first day of the competition Agnel broke the world record in the 400 Freestyle erasing the mark set by Germany’s Paul Biedermann and he set out to do the same in the 200.
At the 100 meter mark he was nearly a second ahead of world record pace. After 150 meters he was still 61 one-hundreths ahead of the pace, but he did not have the extra gear he needed in the last 50 to break Biedermann’s record, finishing in a national record time of 1:39.70 missing the record by 53 one-hundreths of a second.
Agnel 23.13 48.39 (25.26) 1:114.11 (25.72) 139.70 (25.59)
Biedermann 23.79 49.29 (25.50) 1:14.72 (25.43) 1:39.37 (24.65)
Winning results from the rest of the evening:
Women’s 50 Freestyle – Anna Santanmans – 24.69
Men’s 50 Butterfly – Federick Bousquet – 22.57
Women’s 400 IM – Fantine Lesaffre – 4:39.04
Men’s 200 Breast – Giacomo Perez Dortona – 2:07.01
Women’s 200 Back – Alexianne Castel – 2:05.42
Same in long course for the 200 ! they will go down pretty soon . Allison Schmitt was close in London , so Muffat and Schmitt both are close to the WR . Agnel can brake both ( short & long course WR’s ) , that’s for sure .
The men’s 200 free world record in long course? Good luck. He still has more than 1 second to gain to beat it. Possible but very very very hard. The record by the german swimmer has been put at a very high level thanks to the magical suit which has helped him very well or I would rather say because of the magical suit which has helped him very well.
agreed, that 200 free long course record will be very tough to beat, even from Agnel. that particular record is one of the untouchable ones on the mens side (at least in the foreseeable future).
These 2 world records in the 200 free made in the magical suits are tough to beat but I think Camille Muffat and Yannick Agnel, if they don’t swim the 800 free to focus on the 200 free and the 400 free, will break them this week.
Pellerin is too smart to have let them show all their cards at French Nationals when they have bigger fish to fry. I think he let them go after the 800s because they probably won’t swim them at Euros or Worlds. There’s still a lot of racing left this season.
No world championships for Camille Muffat and Yannick Agnel. After the european championships in France it’s all for training.
I’m pretty sure they have more to come. Fabrice Pellerin is a fantastic coach, and these are only French Nationals. There is no need to break the WR here, and we have Europeans as well as worlds coming up soon. I’m sure with tweaking and probably more rest, we’ll see the records fall. I am convinced that Pellerin’s plan for them wasn’t to peak fully at nationals – there’s no point.
Excited for the upcoming championships 😀
Lets be take a second and think about what those suits did for the mentality of elite swimmers. The mental barriers were broken for swimmers and what is possible. The fact that the suits were a form of cheating is a different subject, but imagine what it did to the psyche? This is like phelps’ 200 fly, his times made it possible and the training world wide adjusted.
Granted not everyone is breaking records, but thats ok. The few who saw and it “clicked” and trained for these new heights had to know that this was possible. it maybe a stretch but at that level of the game, the training is there, the mental aspect is what needs training… Read more »
those world records are as good as gone.
Interesting that they both went out too fast and were run-down by the current WR’s.
Glad to see records beginning to fall with regularity, seems hard training has finally closed the gap the suits created! Just a thought, when fina made the current suit rules, why didn’t they allow males to have the full knee suits that women enjoy? Not that I have anything against the current rules, they are working great and I’m glad about using non-rubber suits, but in this age of equality in other sectors of our culture, just wonder why it’s never been made a topic.
Because they look like dorks.