French swimmer Laure Manaudou on Tuesday vowed to bounce back at the Olympic Games after being beaten for the first time in four years over her favorite distance, the 400m freestyle, at the national championships.
Despite the reigning Olympic champion and two-time world champion over the distance still qualifying for Beijing, she said she was devastated by her third place.
She collapsed in tears late on Monday after she finished behind Romania’s 200m Olympic champion Camelia Potec — the new protege of her former coach Philippe Lucas — and Coralie Balmy, who took the national title.
“I wasn’t only depressed yesterday evening, I was until midday,” said Manaudou, who on Tuesday pulled out of the women’s 200m freestyle final, meaning she will not qualify for the event for the Olympic Games.
But she bounced back later on Tuesday by winning the 100m backstroke.
“It’s true that yesterday evening it was hard for me to refocus on the competition. When I talked about it I started crying. Even when I talk about it now it’s true that it still annoys me a little,” she said.
Manaudou, 21, said she was under enormous pressure compared with her experience when she went to Athens four years ago, but that the defeat was a learning experience.
“I’ve never been so stressed. In 2004 I was 17 years old. I breezed through the qualifiers, I did one race after another and I was very fresh,” she said.
“Now, I’m not old, but I’ve four more years on the clock and younger swimmers are coming up behind me. It’s not easy being beaten, but it’s true that it’s better that it happens now. I think I’ll have less pressure when I go over 400m [at the Olympics] because I no longer have the world record and I’m not the top Frenchwoman now,” she said.
Manaudou said she would have found it hard to swallow had she failed to qualify for the Olympics because she was still waiting for the new swimsuit of her sponsors Arena to match Speedo’s record-breaking LZR Racer.
“I think that if I hadn’t qualified for the Games there would have been a big problem, but it’s good I did it,” she said. “I’m waiting for the new Arena suit, I’ve seen the photo. With regards to the tests carried out by Filippo [Magnini, men’s 100m freestyle world champion] it seemed superb.”
In Beijing she plans to swim both the 100m backstroke and the 400m freestyle.
“The 100m backstroke isn’t very well scheduled, but with my training I will be able to move from one race to another and I hope that things will go well at the Games,” she said.
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