Glasgow (AFP)

Four lengths before the big jump: Florent Manaudou, back in Blue for the first time in more than three years, took the heat in the relays at the European Short Course Swimming Championships, where Mélanie Hénène dressed up gold on 50 m butterfly, Thursday in Glasgow (Scotland).

Until then, the last dive in Manaudou's French team (29 years) went back to August 2016, when he lost in the Olympic final of 50 m in Rio, for a hundredth (21.41 against 21.40 for Ervin).

In the meantime, the 2012 Olympic champion of the one-way has left the pools for two and a half years, to practice handball in particular, before diving back eight months ago. With the ambition to reconquer Olympic gold in the 50m in Tokyo next summer.

In the Scottish Basin, in series as in the final, Manaudou launched the 4x50 m medley mixed tri-color, back (23.25 then 23.07). The Blues are finally ranked fifth (1: 38.17).

"It was nice to swim a relay for the French team, it was good to start with that," said the sprinter who trains between Antalya, Turkey, under the leadership of Britain's James Gibson, and Marseille, where Julien Jacquier supervises him.

But it is Friday, with the 50 m, that the serious things begin again for Manaudou. Expects a duel with the Russian Vladimir Morozov, world champion and European champion in the distance in the pool of 25 m, and who had beaten at the World-2012 short course in Istanbul. A competition he welcomes a very good eye: "it motivates me," he says.

"I have a little trouble putting myself in, I have already chained a lot of competitions, I do not have the same motivation as if I were at the World Championships in the big pool or the Olympics", develops -t it. "So it's better to have a guy who swims fast than to know that I win easily, it's not my goal, I want to beat the best."

- First crown for Hénique -

If Manaudou holds the best world time of the season in small pool on 50 m - 20 sec 57 in London at the end of November - Morozov (20.77 at best in 2019) aims to dispossess his rival of the world record (20.26 since 2014).

"I've been running for almost ten years now, and the opportunity is good because the 50m is not the last day, when I have a lot of races in my legs," said the Russian.

It's also in a corner of Manaudou's head. "I'm thinking of course, if he wants to beat the world record, beat him ... But I want to win and I will hit ahead and I will beat him too ...", launches it's going to be a great battle. "

At the age of 26, Mélanie Hénique offered herself her first individual international crown, on her heart race - but not Olympic - the 50 m butterfly, a French record in bonus (24.56).

A great reward for the one who had never before mounted higher than the third step of the international podiums, always on 50 m butterfly (Euro-2010 and Mondials-2011 in large pool, Euro-2012 in small), and who failed to qualify for the 2019 World Cups in the big pool last summer.

"A bad for a good" which allowed her to give herself two months of beneficial rest, she estimates. "They allowed me to empty, to take care of myself, to no longer be injured (shoulder), to set up things that suit me.I needed a stop, to take a little It's been ten years since I've had one. "

Behind her, her compatriot Béryl Gastaldello (24) pocketed silver (24.78), her very first individual international medal.

© 2019 AFP