The career of the ex-swimmer from Nîmes, now 29 years old and retired from the pools since 2016, culminates in 2012 at the London Olympics, where French swimming has experienced the most successful results in its history.

Of the seven medals she won there, he was involved in three: gold in the 200m and with the 4x100m relay, and silver with the 4x200m.

After Laure Manaudou and Alain Bernard, and with Camille Muffat, Florent Manaudou or even Camille Lacourt and Jérémy Stravius, Agnel, a slender silhouette that exceeds two meters, exceptional aquatic qualities and an image of "intellectual" cultivated at will with blows of literary references, embodies this golden age.

He is only twenty years old.

At 17 already, he affirms a certain singularity: when all swim in polyurethane wetsuits in 2009, he sticks to the classic swimsuit.

"He's a loner. You become lonely so as not to be slowed down", said of him a few years later Fabrice Pellerin, the coach who led him to Olympic gold.

Winding turn

"It starts at 14 when he decides to come to Nice and move away from his parents" because he "had the feeling that this is where he could build his career. It is this self-determination that 'agreed,' continued Pellerin.

Yannick Agnel on the podium in the 200 m freestyle at the European Championships in Berlin, August 20, 2014 DAMIEN MEYER AFP / Archives

The results came quickly for Agnel, crowned European champion in the 400m in 2010, at 18, from his first international long course championships, then double Olympic champion two years later - a double matched with a promising place at the foot of the prestigious 100m podium.

But when everything suggests that he has the means to become one of the heavyweights in world swimming, that he dreams of expanding his range from 100m to 400m, his trajectory takes a sinuous turn.

In the spring following the London Games, out of breath and "reached a point of no return", he broke abruptly with Pellerin, who had been training him for seven years, and even thought of stopping everything.

Agnel, despite everything crowned double world champion in the summer of 2013 (over 200 m and 4x100 m) - his last international titles -, then believed in the American adventure with Bob Bowman, the emblematic mentor of Michael Phelps, at Baltimore, but he exhausted himself there and the experience only lasted a year.

With the Rio Games in mind, he returned to France, to Mulhouse to be precise, in the fall of 2014.

First novel

It was in the Alsatian city that he worked until 2016 under the direction of Lionel Horter - the coach who led Roxana Maracineanu, the current Minister of Sports, to become the first French swimmer to be world champion in 1998. It is also there that he is now prosecuted for alleged acts of rape of a minor dating back to 2016.

His career ended sadly, at the age of 24, with a disastrous 2016 Olympics, between incredible qualification, elimination from the 200m series, and criticism of his 4x200m teammates for his absence.

"Considering the last four years that I have just spent, if I go over four more like that, you will find me between four boards. So it is better not to" continue, then loose the former Niçois.

Yannick Agnel winner of the 400m freestyle at the European Championships, November 22, 2012 in Chartres Eric Feferberg AFP / Archives

"You can not imagine how difficult it was. I had moments of happiness that saved my skin, but sportingly, it was not an easy task," he admits.

The swimmer was also affected in early 2015 by the death in a helicopter accident on the set of a TV show by Camille Muffat, his training partner for a long time.

Agnel has been a consultant for France Télévisions since 2019. He has also been involved in e-sport: he has been the sports director of a club and, for a few months, a columnist for franceinfo, but the public media announced on Thursday "to suspend (this ) collaboration until the conclusions of the investigation ".

Her first novel, entitled "The Roots of the Sun", is due for publication in January.

© 2021 AFP