Over the weekend the European Junior Open Water Swimming Championships took place in Marseille, France. A total of eight events took place over three days, with ages ranging from 14 to 19 years old.
After dominating the Open Water portion of the FINA World Championships last month, winning four gold and six total medals over seven events, France continued their successful run at home in Marseille with four golds.
Oceane Cassignol, who was on the gold medal winning French squad in the mixed team event in Budapest, won gold in the women’s 16-17 7.5k by just two tenths of a second. Her time of 1:25:28.50 narrowly got by Germany’s Lea Boy (1:25:28.70).
The men’s 7.5k wasn’t as close, as France’s Clement Batte (1:18:55.20) won by over ten seconds with Italy’s Luca Amura (1:19:05.70) in 2nd.
Their third individual gold came from Logan Fontaine, who was also on the World Championship winning mixed team with Cassignol. Fontaine won the men’s 18-19 10k by seven tenths of a second in 1:51:57.90. Italian Pasquale Sanzullo (1:51:58.60) won silver. Sanzullo’s brother Mario was in a strikingly similar position at the World Championships, as he was seven tenths back of another Frenchman, Marc-Antoine Olivier, for gold in the men’s 5k.
The fourth French gold came in the 14-19 5k relay, where they won in 58:41 over Germany (59:22) and Hungary (59:46).
In terms of total medals, the Hungarians led the way with seven. They had two gold medal performances from Szilard Gallyassy (55:14.50) in the boys 14-15 5k and from Melinda Novoszath (2:05:12.10) in the women’s 18-19 10k. They added a silver and a bronze in the team events, and another silver and two bronzes individually.
The other individual title came from Italy’s Gulia Salin, who won the girl’s 14-15 5k in 59:11.10. The Russians won the 14-16 5k relay in 1:00:01 ahead of Hungary (1:00:13) and Great Britain (1:00:32).
Full results are available here.
I don’t know what’s going on with French open water but it’s clear that they have found the secret.
Stephane Lecat, legendary open water swimmer has been steering the program in the right direction and way for 4-5years now and the results are starting to come both in Senior and junior