Laure Manaudou

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Laure Manaudou
Manaudou in 2005
Personal information
National team France
Born (1986-10-09) 9 October 1986 (age 37)
Villeurbanne, France
Height1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight64 kg (141 lb; 10.1 st)
WebsiteLaureManaudou.fr
Sport
SportSwimming
StrokesFreestyle, backstroke
Medal record
Women's swimming
Representing  France
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
Olympic Games 1 1 1
World Championships (LC) 3 2 1
European Championships (LC) 9 1 3
European Championships (SC) 9 2 4
Mediterranean Games 2 0 0
Total 24 6 9
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 2004 Athens 400 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2004 Athens 800 m freestyle
Bronze medal – third place 2004 Athens 100 m backstroke
World Championships (LC)
Gold medal – first place 2005 Montreal 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2007 Melbourne 200 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2007 Melbourne 400 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2007 Melbourne 800 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2007 Melbourne 100 m backstroke
Bronze medal – third place 2007 Melbourne 4 × 200 m freestyle
European Championships (LC)
Gold medal – first place 2004 Madrid 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2004 Madrid 100 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2004 Madrid 4 × 100 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2006 Budapest 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2006 Budapest 800 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2006 Budapest 100 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2006 Budapest 200 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2008 Eindhoven 200 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2008 Eindhoven 4 × 200 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2008 Eindhoven 100 m backstroke
Bronze medal – third place 2006 Budapest 200 m freestyle
Bronze medal – third place 2006 Budapest 4 × 200 m freestyle
Bronze medal – third place 2006 Budapest 4 × 100 m medley
European Championships (SC)
Gold medal – first place 2005 Trieste 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2005 Trieste 800 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2005 Trieste 100 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2006 Helsinki 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2006 Helsinki 800 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2006 Helsinki 100 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2007 Debrecen 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2007 Debrecen 100 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2012 Chartres 50 m backstroke
Silver medal – second place 2007 Debrecen 200 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2012 Chartres 100 m backstroke
Bronze medal – third place 2003 Dublin 100 m backstroke
Bronze medal – third place 2007 Debrecen 4 × 50 m medley
Bronze medal – third place 2008 Rijeka 100 m backstroke
Bronze medal – third place 2012 Chartres 4 × 50 m medley
Mediterranean Games
Gold medal – first place 2005 Almería 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2005 Almería 50 m backstroke

Laure Manaudou (French pronunciation: [lɔʁ manodu]; born 9 October 1986) is a retired[1] French Olympic, world and European champion swimmer. She has held the world record in freestyle events between 200 and 1500 meter. She is the daughter of a French father and a Dutch mother, and she is the older sister of Florent Manaudou who is also an Olympic gold medalist swimmer.

Career[edit]

2004 Olympics[edit]

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, thus becoming only the 2nd 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, but she did not have the team support to win a medal in the women's 4×200 m freestyle relay.[citation needed]

Manaudou is currently tied for third (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, Félicia Ballanger and Camille Muffat. The all-time leader is the fencer Laura Flessel-Colovic, who has five Olympic medals.

2004 European Championships[edit]

Laure Manaudou won three gold medals at the 2004 European Swimming Championships in Madrid, Spain, in the 100-metre backstroke, 400-metre freestyle, and the 4×100-metre medley relay.

2005 World Championships[edit]

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 Championships[edit]

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 Championships[edit]

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. She obtained silver medals in the 100-m backstroke and the 800-m freestyle, and a bronze for 4×200-m freestyle relay. In the 100-m backstroke, she became the second woman in history to swim under a minute in the event. 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[edit]

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.[2] 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 and comeback[edit]

On 17 September 2009, at 22 years of age, Manaudou announced through the newspaper Le Parisien her retirement from competitive swimming.[3] She was quoted as saying, "It came to me little by little. I didn’t make it on impulse. It has matured slowly."[4] In October 2010, she returned to training in the United States with the Auburn University Tigers swim team. She made her return to competition on July 14, 2011, in Tigers colours at a small swimming meet in Athens, Georgia, in the United States, where she set a personal record in the 50-m freestyle event (25.84 s).[5]

2012 Olympics[edit]

Manaudou competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in three events – 100 m backstroke, 200 m backstroke, and the 4 × 100 m medley relay. She failed to advance from the first round heats in all the three events. However, she was poolside on August 3 as her younger brother Florent won a surprise victory in the men's 50 m freestyle final, and embraced him following his victory[6]

Personal life[edit]

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

Manaudou is now dating Fréro Delavega singer Jérémy Frérot,[7] with whom she has a son Lou, born on July 18, 2017

Accomplishments[edit]

Between June 2004 and April 2008, Manaudou remained unbeaten in the 400-metre freestyle, winning 23 finals in succession.[8]

Event Olympic Games World Championships European Championships
2004 in Athens
2005 in Montréal
2007 in Melbourne
2004 in Madrid
2006 in Budapest
2008 in Eindhoven
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 NR
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

Career best times[edit]

  • 200-m freestyle: 1.55.51
  • 400-m freestyle: 4:02.13
  • 800-m freestyle: 8:18.80
  • 100-m backstroke: 59.50
  • 200-m backstroke: 2:06.64

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Swimming News: In Love with Life Again, Laure Manaudou Turns a Leaf with New Man & New Suits". www.swimvortex.com. Archived from the original on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  2. ^ "Tearful Manaudou ponders future". BBC News. 12 August 2008. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
  3. ^ "Manaudou tire sa révérence". Le Figaro. September 18, 2009.
  4. ^ "French swimmer Manaudou retires". Associated Press. 17 September 2009. Retrieved 18 September 2009.
  5. ^ "Laure Manaudou". official London 2012 Olympics website. Archived from the original on 2013-05-15.
  6. ^ "Florent Manaudou joins sister Laure as champions". Yahoo! Sports. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  7. ^ "Laure Manaudou et Jérémy Frérot : Leur réponse aux rumeurs..." www.purepeople.com.
  8. ^ "Laure Manaudou no longer a troubled swimmer". Reuters. 15 June 2012. Retrieved 2 July 2012.

External links[edit]

Records
Preceded by Women's 1500 metre freestyle
world record holder (short course)

20 November 2004 – 12 October 2007
Succeeded by
Preceded by Women's 800 metre freestyle
world record holder (short course)

9 December 2005 – 12 October 2007
Succeeded by
Preceded by Women's 400 metre freestyle
world record holder (short course)

10 December 2005 – 8 August 2009
Succeeded by
Preceded by Women's 400 metre freestyle
world record holder (long course)

12 May 2006 – 24 March 2008
Succeeded by
Preceded by Women's 200 metre freestyle
world record holder (long course)

28 March 2007 – 11 August 2008
Succeeded by
Awards
Preceded by French Sportsperson of the Year
2004
2006
Succeeded by
Preceded by European Swimmer of the Year
2006–2007
Succeeded by
Preceded by World Swimmer of the Year
2007
Succeeded by