Laure Manaudou

Laure Manaudou

Laure Manaudou in 2005
Personal information
Full name	Laure Manaudou
Nationality	France
Stroke(s)	Freestyle, backstroke
Date of birth	9 October 1986 (1986-10-09) (age 23)
Place of birth	Villeurbanne, France
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	64 kg (140 lb; 10.1 st)
Medal record Olympic Games Gold 2004 Athens1 400 m freestyle Silver 2004 Athens 800 m freestyle Bronze 2004 Athens 100 m backstroke World Championships - Long Course Gold 2005 Montreal2 400 m freestyle Gold 2007 Melbourne3 200 m freestyle Gold 2007 Melbourne 400 m freestyle Silver 2007 Melbourne 800 m freestyle Silver 2007 Melbourne 100 m backstroke Bronze 2007 Melbourne 4×200 m freestyle European Championships (LC) Gold 2004 Madrid 400 m freestyle Gold 2004 Madrid 4×100 m medley Gold 2004 Madrid 100 m backstroke Gold 2006 Budapest 400 m freestyle Gold 2006 Budapest 800 m freestyle Gold 2006 Budapest 100 m backstroke Gold 2006 Budapest 200 m individual medley Gold 2008 Eindhoven 200 m backstroke Gold 2008 Eindhoven 4×200 m freestyle Silver 2008 Eindhoven 100 m backstroke Bronze 2006 Budapest 200 m freestyle Bronze 2006 Budapest 4×200 m freestyle Bronze 2006 Budapest 4×100 m medley European Championships (SC) Gold 2005 Trieste 100 m backstroke Gold 2005 Trieste 400 m freestyle Gold 2005 Trieste 800 m freestyle Gold 2006 Helsinki 100 m backstroke Gold 2006 Helsinki 400 m freestyle Gold 2006 Helsinki 800 m freestyle Gold 2007 Debrecen 100 m backstroke Gold 2007 Debrecen 400 m freestyle Silver 2007 Debrecen 200 m freestyle Bronze 2003 Dublin 100 m Backstroke Bronze 2007 Debrecen 4×50 m medley Bronze 2008 Rijeka 100 m backstroke Mediterranean Games Gold 2005 Almería 400 m freestyle Gold 2005 Almería 50 m backstroke

Laure Manaudou (born 9 October 1986 in Villeurbanne, Rhône) was a French Olympic, world and European champion swimmer. She is the daughter of a French father and a Dutch mother.

2004 Olympics

Manaudou currently holds the world records for the 400 meter freestyle (short course), but she has lost her "long course" record, which is set in 50 meter pools. She won the gold medal in the women's 400 meter freestyle at the 2004 Athens Olympics. It was France's first gold medal ever in women's swimming and the first swimming gold medal won by a French athlete since Jean Boiteux's victory in the 400 meter men's freestyle event at Helsinki in 1952. Manaudou won the silver medal in the women's 800 meter freestyle at the Athens Olympics. In that race, she had a quick start but was passed down the stretch by Ai Shibata of Japan. She also won the bronze medal in the women's 100 meter backstroke, becoming only the second Frenchwoman to win three medals in a single Olympic Games, Summer or Winter. The first one was the track and field athlete Micheline Ostermeyer in London in 1948. Manaudou was by far the best swimmer on the French team, and did not have the team support to win a medal in the women's 4×200 m freestyle relay.

Manaudou is currently tied for second (three medals altogether) on the all-time list of French multiple female Winter or Summer Olympic medal winners along with Micheline Ostermeyer, Marielle Goitschel, Pascale Trinquet-Hachin, Perrine Pelen, Anne Briand-Bouthiaux, Marie-José Pérec, Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli and Félicia Ballanger. The all-time leader is the fencer Laura Flessel-Colovic, who has five Olympic medals.

2004 European Swimming Championships

Laure Manadou has won three gold medals at the 2004 European Swimming Championships in Madrid, Spain, for the 100 metre backstroke, 400 metre freestyle, and the 4×100 metre team medley races.

2005 World Swimming Championships

On 24 July 2005 at the 2005 World Aquatics Championships in Montreal, Canada, Manaudou won the women's 400 m freestyle. Manaudou was under world record pace for the first half of the race. In the second half of the race, Manaudou was challenged by Shibata, her rival from the Olympics. Pundits were already predicting that Manaudou would eventually eclipse the world-record mark in the 400 m freestyle set by Janet Evans at the 1988 Summer Olympics. This would happen on 12 May 2006, as she broke Evans's world record of 4:03.85 during the final of the French championship in Tours with the time of 4:03.03.

2006 European Swimming Championships and new 400 m freestyle world record

On 12 May 2006, Manaudou broke Janet Evans's world record in the women's 400 meter freestyle swim that had stood for 18 years. Manaudou then held the same world record for nearly two years.

On 6 August 2006, on the final day of the 2006 European Swimming Championships in Budapest, she broke her own world record with a time of 4:02.13 in winning the 400 m freestyle title. She also won the 800 m freestyle (in European record time), 200 m individual medley and 100 m backstroke titles. In addition, she obtained the bronze medal in the 200 m freestyle, 4×200 m team freestyle and 4×100 m team medley. With her four titles, she equalled the record of the number of individual titles won in the same European swimming championships held by East Germany's Ute Geweniger (1981) and Hungary's Krisztina Egerszegi (1993).

2007 World Swimming Championships and new 200 m freestyle world record

Manaudou broke the 200 m freestyle world record at the 2007 World Swimming Championships in Melbourne in winning the final. She also won the 400 m freestyle event, obtained a silver for the 100 m backstroke and the 800 m freestyle, and a bronze for 4×200 m freestyle relay. She was leading the race in the 800 m final going into the last lap, but the American Kate Ziegler finally overtook her in the last metres to win by a margin of 28 cm. She was thus prevented from becoming the first female swimmer to win the 200 m, 400 m and 800 m freestyle titles at the same World Championships.

2008 Olympics

In the 2008 Summer Olympics, Manaudou was unable to recapture her form from the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. After starting strong and holding the lead at the 200-meter mark, she finished last (eighth) in the 400 m freestyle final with a finishing time of 4:11.26. After the defeat Manaudou admitted giving up during the race after struggling to keep up. ⁴ She then finished seventh in the 100 m backstroke final. In her final hope for a medal, in the 200 m backstroke, she finished last in her semifinal heat and was eliminated.

Retirement

On 17 September 2009, at 22 years of age, Manaudou announced through the newspaper Le Parisien her retirement from competitive swimming.⁵ She was quoted as saying, "It came to me little by little. I didn’t make it on impulse. It has matured slowly.”⁶

Personal life

The weekly magazine Paris Match ran a cover story on Manaudou in its 5-11 April 2007 issue.

From 2001-2007, Manaudou was coached by Philippe Lucas. She competed for the Melun-Dammarie club until 2006, when she moved to Canet-en-Roussillon.

On 9 May 2007, she announced at a press conference at the Canet-en-Roussillon swim club that she was leaving her coach Philippe Lucas to move to Italy and to train with the club Lapresse Nuoto, located in Turin. She added, however, that she would continue to swim for France.

On 6 August it was reported that Manaudou had been removed from her Italian-based team. The split is said to have been triggered by a fallout between Manaudou and LaPresse Nuoto club chief executive Paolo Penso. Penso is believed to have questioned Manaudou's attitude to training (Reuters/L'Equipe).

Manaudou won four medals in the European Championships of 2007, despite reported conflicts between her and Luca Marin, her Italian ex-boyfriend.

The same day, lewd pictures of Laure Manaudou started to propagate on the Internet. Marin denied being the culprit.⁷

Accomplishments

Event		Olympics Games		World Championships			European Championships
		2004 in Athens  Greece		2005 in Montréal  Canada	2007 in Melbourne  Australia		2004 in Madrid  Spain	2006 in Budapest  Hungary	2008 in Eindhoven  Netherlands
Freestyle	200 m				1:55.52 WR			1:58,38
	400 m	4:05.34 ER		4:06.44	4:02.61 CR		4:07.90	4:02.13 WR
	800 m	8:24.96			8:18.80 ER			8:19.29 ER
	4×200 m				7:55.96 NR			7:56.44 NR	7:52.09
Backstroke	100 m	1:00.88			59.87 ER		1:00.93	1:00.88	1:00.05
	200 m								2:07.99 NR
Medley	200 m							2:12.69
	4×100 m						4:05.96	4:03.64 NR

• WR : World record
• ER : European record
• NR : National record
• CR : Championship record

Career best times

• 200 m freestyle: 1.55.52 (4th fastest swimmer ever)
• 400 m freestyle: 4:02.13 (4th fastest swimmer ever)
• 800 m freestyle: 8:18.80 (4th fastest swimmer ever)
• 100 m backstroke: 59.50 (6th fastest swimmer ever)
• 200 m backstroke: 2:06.64 (4th fastest swimmer ever)

References

External links

• Official website (French)
• Swim Rankings profile
• "Laure Manaudou", n°27 on Time’s list of "100 Olympic Athletes To Watch"

Records
Preceded by Petra Schneider	Women's 1500 metre freestyle world record holder (short course) 20 November 2004 – 12 October 2007	Succeeded by Kate Ziegler
Preceded by Sachiko Yamada	Women's 800 metre freestyle world record holder (short course) 9 December 2005 – 12 October 2007	Succeeded by Kate Ziegler
Preceded by Lindsay Benko	Women's 400 metre freestyle world record holder (short course) 10 December 2005 – 8 August 2009	Succeeded by Joanne Jackson
Preceded by Janet Evans	Women's 400 metre freestyle world record holder (long course) 12 May 2006 – 24 March 2008	Succeeded by Federica Pellegrini
Preceded by Federica Pellegrini	Women's 200 metre freestyle world record holder (long course) 28 March 2007 – 11 August 2008	Succeeded by Federica Pellegrini
Awards
Preceded by Otylia Jędrzejczak	European Swimmer of the Year 2006-2007	Succeeded by Rebecca Adlington
Preceded by Leisel Jones	World Swimmer of the Year 2007	Succeeded by Stephanie Rice

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