Maxime Grousset kicked off his season by setting a new national record in the 100m butterfly on Thursday in Angers on the first day of the French Short Course Swimming Championships.
World distance champion this summer in the long course, Grousset won in 49 sec 24/100 ahead of the returning Mehdy Metella. In passing, he gets a ticket for the European Championships in the 25m pool scheduled for December in Romania. Later in the evening, the New Caledonian also dominated the 100m medley final despite a small error at the start.
Very close to a world medal this summer in Fukuoka, Mewen Tomac also distinguished himself in the 200m backstroke with a time of 1 min 49 sec 23/100th, ahead of his rival Yohann Ndoye-Brouard by more than 3 seconds. For the first race of the evening, Anastasiia Kirpichnikova won the 1500 m freestyle in 15 min 33 sec 42/100, nine seconds better than the previous French record which had been held by Laure Manaudou since 2004.
In the other races, Charlotte Bonnet captured a new title by winning the 200m medley, while Pauline Mahieu dominated the battle in the 50m backstroke. The Angevin competition marks the start of the Olympic season for the French swimmers and allows them to assess their state of form as they resumed training around two months ago.