Ndoye Brouard Hits 52.97 100 Back As France’s 3rd Fastest All-Time

FFN GOLDEN TOUR – MARSEILLE

• Friday, March 19th – Sunday, March 21st
• Marseille, France
• LCM (50m)
• Entries
• Day 1 Prelims
• Results

30-year-old Florent Manaudou already set himself apart from the men’s 50m freestyle competition here in Marseille, but tonight he put even more of a statement on his dominance with a convincing victory.

After having clocked a morning prelim swim of 21.87 as the only sub-22 second swimmer of the field here on day 1 of the FFN Golden Tour, Manaudou punched an even quicker mark of 21.72 to seal the deal for gold. The next closest swimmer was represented by visiting Dutchman Jesse Puts, who posted a silver medal-worthy effort of 22.23.

The Olympic champion Manaudou’s time tonight shaved .01 off of his previous season-best of 21.73, maintaining his position as the top swimmer in the world right now, with the postponed Olympic Games on the horizon.

The women’s 50m fly saw one less competitor race tonight, as the 2nd seed Marie Wattel wound up not diving in during the final after capturing a morning swim of 25.91.

That left French national record holder Melanie Henique and Dutch national record holder Ranomi Kromowidjojo to go head-to-head, with the former getting to the wall first by just a fingernail. Henique touched in 25.47 while Kromo was right behind in 25.59 as the only two swimmers under 26 seconds.

Henique owns the French national record in 25.24, while Kromo fired off a new Dutch standard of 25.24 of her own just last week.

The men’s 100m fly saw Swiss standout and NC State commit Noe Ponti get it done for gold, producing a solid effort of 51.89 as his 2nd sub-52 second outing on the day. Ponti was slightly quicker this morning with a heats swim of 51.76 but he held off domestic powerhouse Mehdy Metella who snagged silver in 52.02.

Fellow Wolfpack member Nyls Korstanje followed Ponti out of the heats as the 2nd fastest swimmer, but fell to 4th tonight by .01 in 52.93, with Czech 200m fly national record holder Jan Sefl getting on the podium instead in 52.92.

Of note, freestyle ace Danas Rapsys of Lithuania won the men’s 100m fly B-final in 53.98.

The top 2 swimmers of the men’s 100m backstroke dipped under the FINA ‘A’ qualification standard of 53.85 needed for the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer. Yohann Ndoye Brouard of the host nation churned out an impressive swim of 52.97 to make a statement with splits of 25.79/27.18.

Brouard now ranks as the world’s 4th fastest swimmer this season and the top man from his nation. In fact, his sub-53 second performance, the first of his career, now frog-hops over Mewen Tomac to become France’s 3rd fastest performer all-time.

For Tomac’s part, he also got under the FINA qualification standard with room to spare, scoring a mark of 53.19 as runner-up in a new lifetime best for himself.

Jeremy Desplanches of Switzerland whipped out a massive 1:57.50 200m IM to beat out Arizona State University commit Leon Marchand of France. Marchand was also well under 2:00 in a mark of 1:58.97, the fastest time of the young athlete’s career by over a second.

Desplanches’ effort here displaces his previous season-best of 1:57.76 from last December, inching him up the world rankings to now be situated 4th. Marchand is now 15th in the world at just 18 years of age.

Additional Winners:

• Serbia’s Caba Siladji took the men’s 50m breaststroke in 27.37, just .08 ahead of Dutch maestro Arno Kamminga‘s 27.45. Germany’s Marco Koch took the B-Final in 28.32.
• Dutch breaststroke Rosey Metz followed up on her top seed from the women’s 50m breast, posting 30.90 for gold tonight.
• A Russian duel went down in the women’s 400m free, with Anna Egorova winding up on top in 4:07.46, less than a second away from her season-best of 4:06.58 from last December. Open water swimmer Anastasia Kirpichnikova was the next swimmer under 4:12 with 4:08.84, good enough for silver.
• Dutch national record holder Kira Toussaint was red hot with a time of 59.84 to scorch the women’s 100m back field.