Maxime Grousset, a little butterfly in the big leagues – Libération

At the end of a week marked by a disappointment in the 100m freestyle and then a withdrawal from the 50m, Maxime Grousset failed to reach the podium in the 100m butterfly.

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Let’s imagine the French swimming team as a teen series. Florent Manaudou would be the big guy at school who makes his own rules. Léon Marchand the shy guy who becomes popular, who succeeds in everything. There remains a third character, the discreet handsome guy, determined to exist in the middle of it all. Maxime Grousset had the opportunity, in the final of the 100 meters butterfly, this Saturday, August 3. But for him, it didn’t end happily: he finished in fifth place.

The week had started with a disappointment for the French swimmer. Second in the 100m freestyle heats, then fourth in the semi-finals, the Frenchman was legitimately eyeing the podium. But on Wednesday, he had failed in fifth place, 22 hundredths of a second off the bronze. He had to quickly digest his loss in order to better set off again the next day to attack the 50m freestyle. In the wake of his qualification for the final, the media saw the 25-year-old New Caledonian emerge all smiles, “very happy to have bounced back”.

“I want to do everything”

Except that, a few moments later, his staff announced that he would not participate in the final, to put all his chances on the 100 meters butterfly. “I want to do everything, to see at the moment how I feel about things,” confided the swimmer during the final training camp of the French team before the Olympics. But Michel [Chrétien, son entraîneur, ndlr] will be there to reason with me, to tell me what I have the best chance of winning.” So it was as a spectator that he attended Florent Manaudou’s medal in the 50 meters on Friday. That same evening, his strength now entirely devoted to swimming the butterfly, Grousset finished second in the semi-finals.

Results for Friday, August 2

Three hundredths ahead of him, Kristóf Milák. A huge butterfly specialist, the Hungarian was already an obstacle facing Léon Marchand in the 200 meters. Not so insurmountable, since Marchand had passed him in the final straight, to take the Olympic gold. To defend his status this Saturday evening, a disappointed Milák had no intention of giving Grousset the slightest chance. But unlike his roommate of the week, Grousset was unable to get rid of him. Worse, he ended up overtaken by Canadians Josh Liendo and Ilya Kharun.

The challenge was all the greater for Maxime Grousset because he is not originally a specialist in the 100m butterfly. Rather cut out for the sprint, he had stayed in the final of the distance at the 2023 World Championships, simply out of a taste for the challenge, and had won to everyone’s surprise. “Last year, Maxime performed well in the 100m butterfly without really working on it,” confirms his coach Michel Chrétien. “We tried to change the training content in relation to his results at the world championships, and I realized that we were on the wrong track. I told him, ‘Listen, let’s stop, let’s continue to prepare well for the freestyle, and then the rest will come.'” The rest did not come.