This is one of the key stages on the road to the Paris Olympics in the summer of 2024: the Artistic Swimming World Cup is stopping in the Montpellier swimming pool until May 7. At the bottom of the wave for a few years, France has great ambitions for Paris 2024
It’s not the Olympics yet but it’s starting to look like it. Less than fifteen months before the Olympic deadline in Paris, all the competitions are taking a particular turn, in particular this stage of the Artistic Swimming World Cup (the old synchronized swimming) in the Angelotti swimming pool in Montpellier.
This is the first outing of the season for the France team which had dried up the start of the World Cup season. “We have a new choreography, a new ballet for the team, enthuses Manon Disbeaux who is part of the France team. It is quite innovative, it is expected and we can’t wait to show it. With the Games at home, you have to mark the occasion, start strong and make an impression. We must leave a good impression for the rest of the season for the judges or the other nations. You have to hit hard.”
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All the more so since the scoring systems have completely changed: they give more importance to technical difficulties. “It’s a revolution in our sport, details Julie Fabre, the head coach of the France team. In addition to the judges, there are now controllers, former athletes or coaches who have been trained and who must say whether the difficulty has been achieved or not. And for us, it’s a crash test.”
A choreography in tribute to Thomas Pesquet
In this new system, the choreographies must adapt and on this level, the French women already have their idea in mind for the Paris Games. “Our wish is to give a nod to France in each of our choreographies, reveals for franceinfo Julie Fabre. One of our choreographies emerged after Thomas Pesquet’s visit to Insep (the National Institute for Sport, Expertise and Performance). We want to pay him a little homage by working on the effect on the body of a trip to space, by dealing with take-off, weightlessness and the return to Earth. It is important for us that there is something related to our country.”
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After the golden period of the early 2000s, France was short of results for a long time. Les Bleues didn’t even qualify for the team event at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. But there is a promising rebound, welcomes Virginie Dedieu, three-time world champion and bronze medalist in Sydney in 2000. “It’s not new this year, they’ve been strong for several years, welcomes the one who with Muriel Hermine symbolizes this discipline in France. Having the Games at home keeps the girls. We know that in this sport, we have to work together for a long time. Technically, in power and in synchronization, the French stand out. I am very optimistic, even more with the upheaval of the rules.”
The best illustration is the last European Championships in Rome in 2022 where Les Bleues won two bronze medals.
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A revival that is all the more lasting in that in the youth categories, France is one of the strongholds in the world. “We have a new generation which among the juniors brings back medals”, explains Sylvie Neuville, national technical officer at the French swimming federation. “We have a junior world vice-champion, we have a junior world solo champion and we have won the titles at the European youth championships. We have high-performance athletes. So yes, we have ambitions.”
The fifteen swimmers in the group in Montpellier will be only twelve from September, to prepare for the meeting of a career.
