French 17-Yr-Old Sacha Velly Posts 15:01.86 LCM 1500 Free

2021 FRENCH ELITE WINTER CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Thursday, December 9th – Sunday, December 12th
• Montpellier, France
• LCM (50m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Selection Policy
• Entries
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
• Results

The 2021 French Elite Winter Championships concluded today in Montpellier with the competition marking one of a few FINA World Championships qualification opportunities.

The men’s 100m free saw one swimmer get under the French Swimming Federation qualification standard in the form of Maxime Grousset.

22-year-old Grousset put up a winning effort of 48.45 to reap the top prize in the only sub-49 second mark of the field. The next closest swimmer was Charles Rihoux who touched in 49.09 while Julien Berol rounded out the top 3 in 49.09.

For Grousset, his 48.45 was comprised of splits of 23.30/25.15 to get the job done, with the man’s performance sitting just outside the top 10 times of his career. Grousset owns a lifetime best of 47.52 as lead-off on the French men’s 4x100m free relay in Tokyo that would up placing 6th.

Also getting under a cut good enough for Abu Dhabi was Sacha Velly.

Competing in the men’s 1500m freestyle, the 17-year-old crushed the fastest time of his career in 15:01.86, beating the field by over 17 seconds. Seasoned swimmers David Aubrey and Damien Joly placed well behind with the former hitting 15:19.50 to the latter’s 15:19.92.

With his result here, Velly checks in with a new French Age Record for 17-year-olds in the event and also takes over the season’s rankings in terms of European men’s 1500m freestylers 18&U in age.

Additionally, Velly now becomes France’s 7th fastest performer any age, all-time. His best performance entering this competition rested at the 15:19.48 he logged just in March of this year, so the kid did some major damage tonight.

For additional perspective, Velly’s outing here would rank the teen as the 5th fastest American male 17-18-year-old in history.

On the women’s side, Marie Wattel doubled up on her 50m free victory last night with a gold in the women’s 100m fly on this final session. Wattel posted a winning effort of 58.50 as the only swimmer to delve under the 59-second threshold in the race.

Also making some noise was Mewen Tomac who clinched the 50m back victory in a time of 25.19 while visiting Russian ace Anna Egorova topped the women’s 400m free in 4:09.09. The top finishing French woman’s 400m freestyle came in the form of Charlotte Bonnet who settled for silver in 4:12.19.