Chartres (AFP)

Labeled as the 2024 generation like Léon Marchand or Yohann Ndoye Brouard, the young Mewen Tomac will also discover the Olympic experience from Tokyo (23 July-8 August) in the 100 m backstroke after having validated his qualification for the French Championships, Wednesday in Chartres.

On the other hand, the bet failed for Aurélie Muller: the 30-something and double 10 km world champion, narrowly passed next to an Olympic sesame in open water in the summer of 2019, missed her bet to invite herself to Japan on 1500 mr.

At the end of March in Marseille, at the end of the first qualifying phase imagined by the blue management, Tomac had experienced short-lived joy.

In the playoffs, the Amiens backstopper had fulfilled the required chronometric criterion, which offered him virtually the only ticket at stake at this stage, but Ndoye Brouard (20) had dispossessed him in extremis by swimming faster in the final than him in the morning.

No bad surprise this time: already under the time requested in the final from the series on Wednesday morning (53.76), he completed his round trip in 53 sec 13 in the early evening, for 53 sec 85 fixed.

"It's a big relief after these long months of waiting, he breathes timidly. In Marseille, I had made time but Yohann had passed in front of me. There, I was conqueror, it shows on the first 50 m, I start a little fast, I have a little trouble on the return at the end, but I win and that is the main thing. "

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- Head for Paris for Muller -

Going to the Olympics is "a childhood dream, smiles Tomac. I didn't think I would get there when I was little. I can't wait to be there."

Of the nine French swimmers who have so far bagged a ticket for Tokyo individually, nearly half - four - were born between 2000 and 2002: Tomac and Marchand (him qualified on 400m medley) only have ten- nine years old, Ndoye Brouard (also qualified in 200m backstroke), recent European bronze medalist in 100m backstroke and second in 53 sec 47 Wednesday evening, at twenty, and Cyrielle Duhamel (200m medley) 21.

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For Muller, the happy ending of his thwarted Olympic history is not for now.

Disqualified from the 10 km in Rio in 2016 after finishing second, for having hampered one of her competitors in the final sprint, then narrowly passed - a tenth, the smallest possible gap - next to the qualification for Tokyo in water Free in the summer of 2019, the swimmer from Lorraine challenged herself to find a place there over 1500 m.

He missed a little less than a second and a half to pick him up, despite a new personal best (16: 22.66 to 16: 21.21).

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"Even if I narrowly miss my qualification, I am proud of myself, retains Muller, who left Nice a few months ago. In September, I am relaunching a new Paris-2024 project. Wherever it is, the objective, it's to bring this p ... medal back to Paris. "

For her, the time to set course for Paris-2024 has already come.

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