Yeosu (South Korea) (AFP)

The Olympic curse follows her: Aurélie Muller has failed very well to invite herself to the 2020 Olympic Games by missing for a tenth last qualifying place in the 10 km open water at the World Swimming Championships in Yeosu (Korea South) Sunday morning.

A claim brought by the team of France, rejected a first time, will be considered on appeal Monday morning, at 8:30, by the office of Fina, said the tricolor AFP.

We have to go back in time to trace the annoyed Olympic history of Muller (29).

"The question is there: are the Games really bad for me?", She wonders several hours after the race, sitting on the terrace of her hotel.

In Rio in 2016, in the idyllic bay of Copacabana, the student of Philippe Lucas, the former mentor of Laure Manaudou, lives a nightmare: contender N.1 Olympic gold 10 km, she is disqualified and deprived silver medal for putting his hand on a competitor's head in the very last meters. At first destroyed, the swimmer lorraine had since Tokyo High Mass next summer its horizon to change the course of its Olympic destiny.

- Eleventh, for a tenth -

But in South Korean waters Sunday, it is for a place and a tenth that this coveted ticket for the Olympics 2020 has escaped him. This 10 km world was the only opportunity to qualify two swimmers from the same country for the only Olympic race in open water, provided to finish in the top 10. What has succeeded the other French in the running, Lara Grangeon , fourth (1h54: 50) and thus rewarded with a pass for Tokyo. Not Muller, finally eleventh, one tenth of the tenth place, obtained by the Olympic champion Sharon van Rouwendaal (1:54: 51.2 against 1:54: 51.1). The worst scenario.

Especially since after a final sprint swam in a great confusion - the first thirteen are separated by less than five seconds - the ranking, just for the top 10, has been formalized only after a stifling expectation of a twenty minutes, partly spent hands on the hips for her, crossed behind the head for the boss of the free water tricolor Stéphane Lecat.

"It's hard emotionally," agrees Lecat, who with a laconic "yes" sighs to have the impression of reliving the past.

"The last lap, it was horrible: it swims on, it pulls itself, it gives blows, I could not swim," says Grangeon.

A lap earlier, Muller had "taken the lead" to try to "run out of the group" and avoid a sprint finish she knew to his disadvantage. "But the girls held and went up in the last 200 meters," she describes, "disappointed" but without "no regrets because I did my race".

- And after ? -

The last hope of the double world champion of the 10 km (2015 and 2017), which will swim the 5 km Wednesday, lies in the French claim against the Italian Rachele Bruni, finally third and to which he is accused of an "unsporting act" , in this case having "leaned on the legs and pelvis" Muller "150 m from the finish," pleads the tricolor.

A few tens of seconds later, the Chinese Xin Xin won (1:54:47) ahead of American Haley Anderson (1:54:48) and Bruni (1:54:49).

Irony of the story, three years ago in Rio, it is a gesture in the final sprint against Bruni, who had already caused his disqualification.

The painful carioca episode overcame, Muller had retained the world crown of the 10 km, and had even matched the money of the 5 km and gold mixed relay, at the World-2017 in Lake Balaton, Hungary . Then she slowed down the pace of a season to focus on her dietary studies.

Back to training at full speed last September with Tokyo in the lead, his sporting future is now dotted. "If I'm not in the top 10 Sunday, it's over, finished," she told AFP Friday. Today, Muller is no longer categorical - "I do not know, I really do not know" - and gives himself time for reflection. "It's way too early, I can not make a decision today, it's not possible," she says with a trembling voice.

© 2019 AFP