Glasgow (AFP)

Eight months after his return to the pools and seven months of the Olympics 2020, Florent Manaudou was caught up in tension and beaten by the Russian Vladimir Morozov in the final of the 50m at the European Short Course Championships, Friday in Glasgow ( Scotland).

Arriving with the best world time of the season in the 25 m pool (20.57), Manaudou comes from the Scottish Basin with "only" the silver medal, in 20 sec 66, 26 hundredths of Morozov (20.40).

"I have cramps in the end that are not due to physical effort but tension, and I do not like it too much because I feel this kind of thing since the beginning of the season. smiling but it's as if my body did not want to do things sometimes ... ", he admits, acknowledging feeling" tense all day "and qualifying his semifinal "completely nil" (21.17).

No doubt foreign to the fact that before the European competition, the last appearance in France team of Manaudou, who has just turned 29, went back to August 2016, when he lost in the Olympic final of the 50m in Rio , for a hundredth, in favor of the American Anthony Ervin (21.41 against 21.40).

- Manaudou "shared" -

The little brother of Laure then left the pools for two and a half years, to indulge in handball in particular. He did not return until April, with the ambition to reclaim Olympic gold in the 50m next summer in Tokyo, he who was crowned on the first leg in 2012 in London.

"This 50m is complicated because I know everyone is waiting for me and I too want to swim fast", summarizes the quadruple world champion, who trains between Antalya, Turkey, under the direction of the British James Gibson , who led him to Olympic gold, and Marseille, where Julien Jacquier supervises him.

In these conditions, Manaudou is "shared" between several feelings.

Half-full glass: "20 sec 60, it's not insignificant, it's my second (best) time of the season, I did not swim that time at every competition either. glad to get back on a podium, "he begins.

Side glass half empty: "But it annoys me to be four tenths of my best time (20.26, world record since 2014) and it remains a second place, I would have liked to hear the Marseillaise ..." he oscillates, shaped by his spirit of "competitor" which makes him "limit forget" his two and a half years without swimming.

Manaudou still has to swim the 50 butterfly Saturday, plus two relays, but he seems to have made a cross on the 50 backstroke scheduled Sunday.

- Gastaldello finds the smile again -

Beryl Gastaldello finds her smile again in Glasgow. The Texan adopted, who had never been on an individual international podium before the Scottish week, offered her second silver medal in two days over 100m (51.85), the day after her first 50m butterfly.

A great reward for the 24-year-old swimmer who is recovering from a deep depression.

"I had fallen very, very low, I had no control over my body," she said a few months ago.

"All the work that I have been doing for a year and a half, at the psychological level in particular, is starting to pay." It's a pleasure, it's been a while since the wheel had to turn, "she says, explaining having adopted" a different mentality "and now approach the competition" as a playground ".

"I put on silver polish, now I think I should have chosen walleye," she smiled after her second silver medal.

And here she was answered less than two hours later when the French relay 4x50 m ladies, where she was associated with Mélanie Hénique, Lena Bousquin and Anna Santamans, shared the gold with the Dutch (1: 35.21).

Meanwhile, David Aubry, world bronze medalist in the 800m long pool last summer, has enriched the tricolor harvest with bronze in the 1500m (14: 25.66).

© 2019 AFP