2019 LEN EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, December 4th – Sunday, December 8th
- Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Glasgow, Scotland
- SCM
- Entry List
While we pointed out that Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, as well as Great Britain’s Duncan Scott and Siobhan-Marie O’Connor appear to have changed up their racing routines for next week’s European Short Course Championships, another big-time star is keeping to his bread-and-butter events.
French Olympic champion Florent Manaudou isn’t deviating from his thoroughbred sprinting routine, having entered in the 50m free, 50m fly and 50m back events for Glasgow.
Manaudou is listed as the 2nd seeded swimmer in the 50m free, with his 20.57 entry time ranked only behind top seeded Vlad Morozov of Russia’s 20.33. Manaudou owns a lifetime best mark of 20.26, the current World Record mark that he put on the books en route to gold at the 2014 Short Course World Championships.
It was also there in Doha that the powerhouse athlete also established a new 50m back World Record, topping the Short Course World Championships podium in a time of 22.22. For this meet in Glasgow, however, Manaudou comes into the competition as the 8th ranked swimmer with a time of 23.31.
Finally, in the 50m fly, Manaudou ranks 7th for these Championships, carrying a seeded time of 22.64. His top time ever, a mark of 22.09, was another swim he threw down 5 years ago, but this was performed at French Championships.
After taking time away from swimming post-Rio, Manaudou is back, recently competing as part of the International Swimming League (ISL) Team Energy Standard. At the league’s first match in early October, his first competition since winning the silver medal in the 50m freestyle at the 2016 Olympic Games, the 6′ 6”, 210-pound sprinter blasted a 20.77 to win the 50 SCM free by more than half a body length.
At his next ISL match just last week in London, Manaudou put up a 50m free time of 20.57 to lower his season-best even further en route to Glasgow. We’ll see what the man’s got in the bank when there are no skins races and the traditional prelims/semi’s/final format is rolled out for the sprint king.
He isn’t a thoroughbred, he is a quarter-horse, and a very good one.
In 1968, Mark Spitz underperformed at the Olympics. He came back with a mustache and got 7 golds.
Florent underperformed in 2016, and is back with a mustache.🤭
‘Stache joke aside, the guy earns a Silver medal in an individual event at the Olympics (and already has an individual Olympic Gold), and he “underperformed” to you? I bet you’re fun to be around.
I’m not saying he did poorly, but he was pretty disappointed getting silver. He had gone a tenth faster in the semi (21.32), and 21.19 the year before. Nothing wrong with that.