Laure Manaudou

Laure Manaudou

Manaudou in 2005
Personal information
National team	France
Born	(1986-10-09) 9 October 1986 (age 38) Villeurbanne, France
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	64 kg (141 lb; 10.1 st)
Website	lauremanaudou.fr
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Freestyle, 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 2004 Athens 400 m freestyle 2004 Athens 800 m freestyle 2004 Athens 100 m backstroke World Championships (LC) 2005 Montreal 400 m freestyle 2007 Melbourne 200 m freestyle 2007 Melbourne 400 m freestyle 2007 Melbourne 800 m freestyle 2007 Melbourne 100 m backstroke 2007 Melbourne 4 × 200 m freestyle European Championships (LC) 2004 Madrid 400 m freestyle 2004 Madrid 100 m backstroke 2004 Madrid 4 × 100 m medley 2006 Budapest 400 m freestyle 2006 Budapest 800 m freestyle 2006 Budapest 100 m backstroke 2006 Budapest 200 m medley 2008 Eindhoven 200 m backstroke 2008 Eindhoven 4 × 200 m freestyle 2008 Eindhoven 100 m backstroke 2006 Budapest 200 m freestyle 2006 Budapest 4 × 200 m freestyle 2006 Budapest 4 × 100 m medley European Championships (SC) 2005 Trieste 400 m freestyle 2005 Trieste 800 m freestyle 2005 Trieste 100 m backstroke 2006 Helsinki 400 m freestyle 2006 Helsinki 800 m freestyle 2006 Helsinki 100 m backstroke 2007 Debrecen 400 m freestyle 2007 Debrecen 100 m backstroke 2012 Chartres 50 m backstroke 2007 Debrecen 200 m freestyle 2012 Chartres 100 m backstroke 2003 Dublin 100 m backstroke 2007 Debrecen 4 × 50 m medley 2008 Rijeka 100 m backstroke 2012 Chartres 4 × 50 m medley Mediterranean Games 2005 Almería 400 m freestyle 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 older sister of Florent Manaudou who is also an Olympic gold medalist swimmer.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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]

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]

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 two sons, and also a daughter from a previous relationship with Frédérick Bousquet.^[8][9]

Between June 2004 and April 2008, Manaudou remained unbeaten in the 400-metre freestyle, winning 23 finals in succession.^[10]

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

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

• 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

• World record progression 200 metres freestyle
• World record progression 400 metres freestyle
• World record progression 800 metres freestyle
• World record progression 1500 metres freestyle

• Laure Manaudou at Swimrankings.net
• "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 Tony Parker Ladji Doucouré	French Sportsperson of the Year 2004 2006	Succeeded by Ladji Doucouré Sébastien Loeb & Daniel Elena
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