• The French 4x100m relay remained on three medals in a row at the Games.

  • The quartet composed of Grousset, Manaudou, Mignon and Mettela, finished 6th in the final in Tokyo.

  • A result which marks both the end of an era and the beginning of reconstruction.

From our special correspondent in Tokyo,

It was good that it lasted.

And it lasted a while.

Three Olympic charms from Beijing to Rio, and in the middle, a series of historic invincibility which must be taken into account, now that it is cold outside.

Four years without losing a final, three European championships, two world championships, and the title of London, in 2012. We still remember the American journalists who came to congratulate Alex Boyon not far in the comments.

"You deserve it guys".

The largest nation in the cap / bathing suit combo that is under the yoke of a small country of die-hard swimmers.

The relay on the podium for life is over, but it's forbidden to think that we will never win again.

A great start from Grousset raised hopes

To be honest, Monday morning at the Aquatic Center in Tokyo, our little cocorico heart believed in it until mid-term, and even a little more, before the final little disillusion (6th place). Maxime Grousset, the last Porsche to come out of the garage of the French sprint, did not dismantle in the wave of the ogre Dressel, completing the first lap in second position. "I felt that I was catching up with him, he was in the hard at the end". Seeing that, Florent Manaudou, who approaches these games with a thunderous relaxation, has put himself in vintage mode, he who no longer charcoal on the round trip for ages. A stopwatch in 47.6, canon in view of its latest standards, to stay in the game. “Honestly, I didn't think Max was going to be this close to Caleb, so I wanted to give the baton so that Clément sits in the wave of the American”.

Clément is Clément Mignon, gold medalist in London, out of his brief retirement for a final challenge.

After his stint, France downgraded a little, nothing more.

But Mettela is no longer in the aspiration, and the Guyanese, struggling with his shoulder for two years, does not have the strength to return.

“The weak point was me.

You can spit on me, I'll let you, but for a day or two no more!

I never believed I would return to the top level for a year.

I was at the bottom of the abyss, almost wanting to stop swimming.

Obviously, I didn't work the crawl too much ”.

"We recreated a dynamic"

It's not really the delirium of the friends, rather happy to have put the 4x100 relay back on the map after three difficult years. “We could have grabbed a small podium so there is a bitter side, says Mignon. But after Rio, the relay broke up, it faltered and in the end, in four to six months, we recreated a dynamic more than correct but which is not enough to bring back a charm. We are in the infancy, it can only go faster ”. Same feeling on the side of Manaudou, no more affected than that to have lived his first Olympic final without a carrot at the end.

“Frankly, we have no regrets.

I think we have already done 3.11 to be world champions, in Barcelona or Kazan.

This relay we said dead for two / three years, we are in the Olympic final, we were fighting for a medal, it was good.

I'm proud of the three guys who did it with me ”.

We will be satisfied.

Sport

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  • Swimming

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  • Tokyo Olympics 2021

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