France: Yannick Agnel's coach Fabrice Pellerin today justifies his charge's participation at European junior championships in Helsinki, even though Agnel is clearly an 18-year-old going on much more. In well-argued sentiments, Pellerin tells L'Equipe: "Yannick has so much maturity that you can quickly forget that he is only 18. We should not deny him his right to live his age. It's good for him to feel comfortable in a leadership role on the French junior team. It's a necessary step for him to win medals at this level and hear the Marseillaise [French anthem]." Making winning a habit, is what Helsinki is about, a year after the same applied in Prague. "By developing this feeling of competence," says coach Pellerin, "a young swimmer learns more than by participating in a senior competition where he is going to make one or two tests, to fall shy and watch the finals from the stands." That test comes next month in Budapest though there may be no-one left who expects Agnel to be sitting around in the stands when certain finals are on. For his part, Agnel says: "There's a high international level [in Helsinki]. There's the cream of the crop and titles to win. That's important. It's my last year and I intend to make the most of it. But it will be rather difficult to manage because I am in a period of hard preparation for Budapest."
Australia: Leading Ausie swimmers have paid tributes to coach Stan Tilley, who died last week aged 84. Among his charges in days of their youth were Petria Thomas, Dyana Calub and Jonathon Newton, a sprinter who said that "Mr T" was affectionately known as a "hard taskmaster ... but he was very well-respected". Backstroke champion Dyana Calub added: "He was a great man, and a hard coach and a hard trainer. But it was worth it. It was Stan who helped get me on to my first Australian team." Petria Thomas, Olympic and world 'fly champion and coach Tilley's most successful charge, told local reporters: "I owe a lot to Stan and I will miss him very much. He really was like a grandfather to me. Whenever I came home to Mullumbimby I would try to catch up with him."
Italy: Federica Pellegrini has claimed the fastest 400m free in a textile bodysuit (and accused her arch rival Laure Manaudou of wearing two suits when she swam at her best). In her latest blog, she says she wishes to set the record straight after SwimNews suggested that Laure Manaudou's 4:02.13 was the best swim in a single suit over 400m free. At European titles in Eindhoven, March 2008, Pellegrini gave warning of her growing stature with a 4:01.53 world record while wearing and Arena Poweskin Revolution. The European champion denies wearing two suits on that occasion. That was a habit she picked up later at Rijeka for the European short-course championships as the full shiny suits kicked in, for modesty purposes. The practice of multiple suit wearing, seen just about everywhere in Rijeka, was subsequently banned by FINA.
At the time of her win in Eindhoven, Pellegrini's coach Alberto Castagnetti, called the Speedo LZR Racer technological doping. Arena was still the Italian federation sponsor then. Not long after, FIN dumped arena in favour of signing with an unknown brand, Jaked, in which officials working in swimming took a financial stake. The Jaked01 turned out to be more technological doping than the technological doping dubbed so by coach Castagnetti, a man much missed since his untimely death last autumn.
SwimNews is happy to offer an apology to the charming Fede (meant sincerely, for those minded to interpret sarcasm) and take her word for it: "In Eindhoven I wore one suit..." Grand. Then 4:01.53 it is, while Janet Evans's 4:03.85 from Seoul 1988 remains the best ever in a standard textile suit and Fede remains the first Olympic champion to have won her crown (200 free) while wearing two suits (for modesty purposes...). The original article on Pellegrini's 2010 4:03 swim has been updated to reflect the swimmer's statement.
Fede adds in her blog: "... while Laure always used in all competitions a training suit under her race suit to avoid transparency". On that score, SwimNews cannot agree. With respect, dear Fede (and thank you for your gracious note), you are simply wrong on that one. While Manaudou did indeed wear two suits on occasion, I interviewed her in the mixed zone after that 4:02 swim and I can confirm that transparency was an issue with some suits (hers included), as photos from the time, plastered across the papers of Europe, confirm. She definitely had one suit on. Similar in some races in Melbourne 2007, where we saw what would turn out to be the height of Manaudou's powers.
While on on the subject of truth, still to be told is who posted, in an act of pure peevishness, those pornographic photos of Manaudou that appeared on the internet after the break-up of the relationship between medley man Luca Marin and the French Olympic 400m free champion of 2004, just before Fede made Marin her beau. Perhaps it is best we never know, perhaps Fede, not a girl who would condone what went on, will one day expose the culprit(s) on her blog. One thing we know for sure is that the person(s) responsible for making the images public caused Manaudou unnecessary pain and humiliation at a time when her continuation in swimming hung in the balance. A sorry episode, and a million miles away from the world of those who work, as Manaudou and Pellegrini did and do, daily, weekly, monthly, year-in, year-out, to achieve sporting excellence.
