The two swimmers bring the Blues their seventh and eighth medals in these Worlds disputed on the banks of the Danube.

Qualified in extremis for the 50m final after a hard-fought duel in the jump-off, Grousset finally finds himself with two medals, after the silver in the 100m freestyle on Wednesday.

"The objectives are met," he said with a big smile.

"I don't know if I was hoping for a base medal. I thought it was possible and now I have two."

In the absence of defending champion Caeleb Dressel, he took third place in the one-way with a time of 21 sec and 57/100, behind Briton Benjamin Proud and American Michael Andrew.

"I couldn't believe it. With the 50m I had done at the French Championships (22 sec 18/100 in April in Limoges), I didn't tell myself that I was going to be third at the World Championships “, he acknowledged.

Frenchwoman Mélanie Hénique, silver medal in the 50m butterfly at the World Championships in Budapest, June 24, 2022 Attila KISBENEDEK AFP

Arrived on the plot without stress - "I let myself go", he said - Grousset approached his race "with a smile".

"I admit that I really wanted to swim. In fact I had nothing to lose."

"Upward Slope"

The 23-year-old swimmer was the revelation of French swimming at the Tokyo Olympics, thanks to his fourth place in the 100m freestyle final.

For the New Caledonian, this double of world medals now represents "the beginning of (his) career".

"I unlock the counters", he welcomed, projecting himself towards the Olympic Games in Paris in two years.

Maxime Grousset before the start of the 50m freestyle final of the World Championships in Budapest, June 24, 2022 Attila KISBENEDEK AFP

"We will see how far the path takes me but in any case I am on an upward slope which is very pleasant," he said.

A few minutes earlier, Mélanie Henique had won silver in the 50m butterfly (25 sec 31).

Only the queen of the discipline, the Swedish Sarah Sjöström, triple reigning world champion managed to get ahead of the French (24 sec 95).

"We can aim for something beautiful," she predicted in April once validated her ticket to Budapest, while she had been waiting for a world medal for eleven years and the bronze won at the Shanghai Worlds.

On Friday she kept her word.

"Vice-world champion, it's a notch above, it's something I've never done. I'm 29, I'm continuing. It's a beautiful story all the same", a- she reacted.

Sweden's Sarah Sjoström (g), gold medal in the 50m butterfly, and France's Mélanie Hénique, silver medal, at the World Championships in Budapest, June 24, 2022 François-Xavier MARIT AFP

When I hit the wall, "I look and I hear (Sjöström) screaming. I tell myself that I must have scared her because it's not often that she screams with joy like that."

Henique, in the name of brother

The start of the season had however been very difficult for Henique, who had shared on social networks the news of the death of his brother.

"It was so hard, if you knew how hard it had been since February," said the swimmer, saying she immediately thought of her family.

"I think a lot of my brother, I think of my mother then I think of myself, of everything I had to do to be here today, to win this second place."

The other Frenchmen engaged on Friday shone less.

Marie Wattel, silver medalist in the 100m butterfly on Sunday, finished seventh in the 50m butterfly final before being eliminated twenty minutes later in the 50m freestyle semi-final.

Frenchwoman Marie Wattel, before her 50m freestyle series at the Budapest Worlds, June 24, 2022 Attila KISBENEDEK AFP

In backstroke, Yohann Ndoye Brouard and Mewen Tomac failed to reach the 50m final.

The evening was also marked by the 19th title of American Katie Ledecky, crowned in the 800m freestyle.

This is his fifth consecutive title over the distance, his third individual in Hungary after the 400m and 1500m freestyle.

© 2022 AFP