Tokyo (AFP)

Returning to swimming in the spring of 2019 to regain Olympic gold in the 50m, Florent Manaudou reached the final with his best time since his return to the Tokyo Games on Saturday.

Only Caeleb Dressel was faster, on the heels of his 100m butterfly record in gold.

"I decided to let go after the French Championships (mid-June) because I did not come back to suffer, neither in the water nor outside. I came back to experience emotions, but this year was full of negative emotions and not easy to manage, ”says the 2012 Olympic champion and 2016 Olympic one-way runner-up, who devoted himself to handball during his two and a half years away from the pools.

"I said to myself: + Swimming, don't think too much, we'll see what happens."

The method seems to work.

In the Olympic basin, Manaudou first swam his best time of the season in the playoffs, 21 sec 65 which earned him the second time.

Better still, he signed in the semi-finals the fastest 50 m of his second career, in 21 sec 53. Only Dressel did better, in 21 sec 42, certainly between his finals of the 100 m butterfly and the 4x100 m 4 mixed swims.

"I am very happy, I did not think I would be in this place a few weeks ago, appreciates Manaudou. I want to enjoy myself tomorrow (Sunday morning)" in the final.

- "I feel it hot" -

It is because since the post-containment recovery, the Marseille sprinter had completed the one-way at best in 21 sec 67 in mid-May.

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But other than that, his times were skating between 21 sec 7/10 and 8/10, and he had even chained seven 50m above 22 sec in May and June after his fifth place in Europe (21.81).

"I took slaps inside", then confided Manaudou.

"It turned a lot in his head, he saw fifty races," confirmed his trainer Julien Jacquier.

What if the three-time world champion 2015 found his serenity at the best time?

"I feel him hot, he is more and more confident, I see him smile again, more relaxed", observes Maxime Grousset, him too tight to invite himself in the final (21.87, 12th time), two days close to his place at the foot of the 100m podium.

From there to dreaming of gold?

"I think Caeleb (Dressel) will be in front. Afterwards, he also has the right to make mistakes sometimes, I hope it will be tomorrow for us", smiles Manaudou.

This was not the case on the 100m butterfly.

"It took me a world record to win", summarizes Dressel, winner in 49 sec 45, five hundredths better than his previous benchmark mark, ahead of the young Hungarian Kristof Milak (49.68).

Behind, the competition is relegated to more than a second.

- Ledecky in Paris -

"Two of the fastest times in history in a race, that doesn't happen very often to you," said the American.

For the 24-year-old Florida sprinter, this is the second individual Olympic coronation, two days after his triumph in the queen race, his third overall in the Tokyo basin.

But there will be no sextuplet after the failure of the American 4x100m mixed medley relay, only fifth for the first appearance at the Games in the British-dominated event of Adam Peaty (3: 37.58, world record).

Beaten in quick succession over 400m (2nd) and 200m (5th) by Ariarne Titmus at the start of the week - her first individual Olympic setbacks - Katie Ledecky proved that it took more to KO her: to gold History of the first Olympic women's 1,500m on Wednesday, the 24-year-old American added that of the 800m (8: 12.57), for the third time in a row, and ahead of the young Australian (8: 13.83).

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And Ledecky, seven Olympic titles to his name at the time of saying goodbye to Tokyo, has not said his last word.

"I'll go to Paris" for the Olympics-2024, "and maybe beyond, we'll see," she says.

Deprived of an individual Olympic gold medal for fifteen years, the Australian swimmers collected a fifth one on Saturday in the Japanese capital, with the young Kaylee McKeown (20) over 200 m backstroke.

© 2021 AFP