Budapest (AFP)

Two privatized hotels on Margaret Island on the Danube, trips limited to round trips to the swimming pool, tests every five days: the International Swimming League (ISL) brings together the best swimmers in the world in its bubble health since mid-October in Budapest.

There are some 400 swimmers - including Florent Manaudou, the American Caeleb Dressel, the Swedish Sarah Sjöström, the Briton Adam Peaty or the Hungarian Katinka Hosszu - to live for several weeks, and until November 22 for those who reach the final , in the bubble organized by the ISL despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

Another hotel, on the opposite bank, on the Pest side, is reserved for some 150 members of the organization.

The sanitary conditions are drastic.

The dining room looks like "a sort of grid", "the tables are separated by 1 m, 1.50 m, we eat one per table", describes the French sprinter Clément Mignon.

Apart from reaching the Duna Arena, about twenty minutes away on foot, it is forbidden to leave the hotel, except for a possible daily outing of 90 minutes maximum in the perimeter of Margaret Island.

"There is a board in the hall, you have to mark your time of departure, and your time of return", continues Mignon.

- "Covid marshal" -

The members of the ten teams, who each have their own dedicated room and coaches, and their timed training and weight training slots, must not mix with each other either.

And the “Covid marshals” - one assigned to each of the teams - keep watch, from the hotel lobby to the edge of the pools.

In this competition where each race is converted into a point for the swimmers and their team, and where each point scored earns $ 400 (a race won is equivalent to at least 9 points), the financial penalty hangs in the event of non-compliance with these health rules : one point for a badly worn mask, two points for a delay of up to ten minutes, etc.

"It is not at all heavy, estimated the French swimmer Marie Wattel after two weeks. It is not so different from a classic international competition, where we do hotel-pool, pool-hotel all the time. I expected a lot worse atmosphere. "

"In two, three weeks, I will be eager to go home," admitted Florent Manaudou at the end of October.

In the meantime, after long months without competition, the fault of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, all are delighted to reconnect with it.

"It's been seven, eight months since I last did it, it feels really good," Mignon smiles.

- Thirst for competition -

"I needed to get back to competition, I really missed it, says Wattel. It will help me regain my running automatics, to work on gaits which are very hard to get in training."

"I love training, but nothing replaces competition. Having the confirmation that you have done the job well or badly is a very important part of the work", explains Dressel, already thirteen times world champion in 24 years.

Once in the Duna Arena, the ISL mechanism, with its four boxes installed at the edge of the 25 m pool and its light shows, starts.

Behind closed doors, it is not at the end of each match, when the last swimmers in the water survey three 50m only three minutes apart under the encouragement of the other members of their team massed in their respective boxes, that the atmosphere climbs.

The swimmers are won over.

"They really have everything millimeter, it's really professional, they do not leave room for doubt as in other competitions sometimes. There, it's square," observed Mignon.

"We are in a good environment with the best swimmers in the world, we are lucky, not all sports have it, emphasizes Manaudou. And the entrance (before each race), the lights, the DJ (who mixes at the edge of the pool), these are things that really put you in condition, it's cool to have that. "

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