Olympic Gold Medalist Florent Manaudou Announces Return to Swimming

Photo Courtesy: R-Sport / MIA Rossiya Segodnya

2012 Olympic gold medalist Florent Manaudou is making a comeback to the sport of swimming, L’Equipe newspaper announced Tuesday. Manaudou, 28, told L’Equipe newspaper he is missing high-level competition and that he is “excited to swim again and compete with the best.” Manaudou is aiming for a gold medal in 2020.

Manaudou will be training under James Gibson at Energy Standard with other world class swimmers Ben Proud, Chad Le Clos, Kliment Kolesnikov and Sarah Sjostrom.

Manaudou took a brief break from swimming after he was beat by Anthony Ervin in the 50 free at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Manaudou competed in Handball after the Olympics.

He has not competed at a major meet since Rio, only competing in a few small European meets in short course meters. He was a 20.62 from a relay start in November 2018 and was a 53.62 in the 100 IM at a meet in Istres.

Manaudou won the gold medal in the 50 free in the 2012 Olympic Games for France and also swam on France’s 4×100 free relay team that won silver in 2016. Manaudou is fifth all-time in the 50 LCM free with his 21.19 from the 2015 World Championships.

Manaudou also joins Amaury Leveaux as comeback kids in France as Leveaux announced his intentions to come back in the fall.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jᴀᴍᴇs Gɪʙsᴏɴ MBE (@jamesgibson____)

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use

Name*

Email*

43 Comments

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Juan Francisco Quelal

5 years ago

Kelvin Aguirre

5 years ago

Reply to Juan Francisco Quelal

Juan Francisco Quelal se les acabó el recreo

Steven Jackman

5 years ago

Couldn’t do this in the old days, as after school there were very few places to be in a swim team, and you weren’t allowed to earn a penny from being a swimmer.