David Aubry Breaks French NR in 800 free, 7:46.30; Ranks 6th in World

2019 French Elite National Championships– 50M

• Tuesday 16th to Sunday 21st April 2019
• Prelims from 9.30am; final C from 18:00; final A / B from 18h30
• Host: Brittany Regional Swimming League
• Bréquigny swimming pool, 12 boulevard Albert 1er, RENNES
• 50m
• French qualifying rules for 2019 World Championships
• Start list: available here
• Results: available here

Day 5: Saturday 20 April 2019

Men’s 800 Freestyle

• FINA “A” cut: 7:54.31
• Time to achieve in prelims to qualify for Worlds: 7:51.06
• French record: 7:48.28 – Sébastien Rouault (Mulhouse ON) – 13/08/2010 – Budapest (HUN)

Podium:

1. David Aubry (Montpellier Métropole Natation) – 7:46.30
2. Marc-Antoine Olivier (Denain Nat. Porte du Hainaut) – 7:53.12
3. Joris Bouchaut (Stade de Vanves) – 7:54.19

David Aubry broke the French National Record in the 800 free on Saturday, swimming lights-out in the first event of the evening’s finals session. Aubry, who trains with Philippe Lucas at Montpellier Métropole Natation, had put up the second-fastest time in prelims on Friday morning, going 7:51.82. Neither he, nor his Montpellier teammate Damien Joly, who qualified first for tonight’s final with a prelims time of 7:51.54, satisfied the first half of the selection criteria set out by the FFN (Fédération Française de Natation). Namely, they needed to achieve 7:51.06 or better in heats and then finish among the top-2 in final to qualify for the event in Gwangju.

Nevertheless, Aubry swam a perfect final, dropping 3.79 seconds from his previous PB and downing a 9-year-old National Record in the process. In his post-race interview, Aubry admitted to having the record in his sights, but he never expected to beat it by 2 seconds. “I thought I was close to the French Record, but I didn’t expect to beat it by two seconds. It’s rather incredible to swim it in 7 minutes and 46 seconds.”

Aubry, who also won the 1500 free this week in Rennes, satisfying the FFN’s criteria to swim that race at Worlds, broke a 2010 National Record set by Sébastien Rouault (Mulhouse) at the 2010 European Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Aubry’s previous best time was 7:50.09, his winning time from 2018 French Nationals. Compared to his gold-medal performance at this meet last year, Aubry was out 1.6 seconds faster on the first half of the race and home 2.2 seconds faster over the second 400 meters:

• 2019 – 3:54.02 / 3:52.28 = 7:46.30
• 2018 – 3:55.64 / 3:54.45 = 7:50.09

Compared to the previous French mark, it was the second half of the race where he had the advantage:

Second place went to Marc-Antoine Olivier, who like Aubry is better known as one of France’s top open water specialists. They train together in Montpellier, although Olivier represents Denain Natation Porte du Hainaut in competition. Olivier was entered with a seed time of 7:57.73 and went 7:53.12 for the silver medal. Joris Bouchaut took third with 7:54.19. He was bronze medalist a year ago, too, but with 8:01.61. Coming in fourth with 7:54.89 was Damien Joly (Montpellier), runner-up in 2018 with 7:57.83.

Aubry’s time ranks 6th in the world so far this season: