The French delegation ended the day with two silver medals in Rome, with Maxime Grousset and Charlotte Bonnet.
Silver blues. Maxime Grousset and Charlotte Bonnet went for a silver medal on Friday at the European Championships in Rome, a metal they both managed to be satisfied with. The second evening of competition was also marked by the enormous performance of David Popovici, 17, who came very close to the world record in the 100m freestyle.
With a time of 22 sec 97, Grousset finished second in the 50m butterfly, behind the Italian Thomas Ceccon, crowned European champion in 22 sec 89. The 23-year-old sprinter’s program was copious this Friday evening with less than half an hour after his final, the halves of the 100m freestyle, which he concluded with the fifth time (48 sec 15). “I’m still happy, it’s my first medal in the European Championship“, he reacted. “I will be satisfied with that and qualifying for the 100m final. That was the goal.»
In the 100m freestyle final on Saturday evening, he will find the new phenomenon of world swimming David Popovici, who won gold at the World Championships in Budapest a month and a half ago, just ahead of the Frenchman.
Popovici once again displayed his talent by touching the world record. The 17-year-old swam his semi-final in 46.98 seconds, just 7 hundredths off Cesar Cielo’s old wetsuit world record from 2009.It is a step in the right direction. It feels normal for me to take it step by step and keep improving my time“, simply declared the Romanian. “We’ll see in the final, if it turns out he got a little burnt“smiled Grousset, who made himself”very bad legsduring the race. “I was a bit pale at the end of the 100m. I will recover well and we will see (Saturday).»
Bonnet, the “relief”
To the bronze obtained by the men’s 4x200m relay on Thursday, the French team therefore added two silver medals, the second coming from Charlotte Bonnet in the 100m freestyle. The Dutch Marrit Steenbergen (53 sec 24) won her first individual European title, ahead of Bonnet (53.62) and the Briton Freya Anderson (53.63). For the 27-year-old swimmer, it’s a “relief». «It’s been a very long time since I’ve been on a podium“, rejoiced Bonnet whose last individual medal in an international championship dated from 2018.
«Emotionally I am not recovered from all that I have been able to cross these last 2-3 years“Explained the pupil of Philippe Lucas, who had been disappointed with his performance at the Budapest Worlds in June. In Hungary, she only took sixth place in her favorite race, the 200m freestyle, before being eliminated in the 100m semi-finals. “I am super happy in six weeks to have been able to bounce back from a competition where it was still a failure. It was complicated to get back into it and there I am a silver medalist. Yes, I would have liked to win and hear La Marseillaise but frankly I can’t be too greedy, I have to be content with that.»
Tomac, Ndoye Brouard and Wattel in the final
In the other races of the evening, Marie Wattel qualified for the 50m butterfly final, as did Mewen Tomac and Yohann Ndoye Brouard in the 200m backstroke. After his misadventure last year at the Tokyo Olympics where he hit a wall in a bend, Ndoye Brouard again experienced an extremely rare incident when his toe clip broke at the start of the race. No consequence this time since he was able to swim again at the end of the evening. He will play well in the final on Saturday.
