"After all these years, it's like a woman who tells you 'I want to stay with you but I also want a lover' … It's not easy." That's how Hugues Duboscq, French Olympic breaststroke medallist, today describes a crack in his relationship with long-time Greek coach Christos Paparrodopoulos.

In an interview with Pascal Glo, of L'Equipe, Duboscq reveals that he has engaged Benoît Masclaux, 28 and a coach at the club in Le Havre since 2009, to overhaul his stroke and Yves Guerniou, a friend of the swimmer's, to take charge of his strength training.

Duboscq made the moves after missing the finals of the 100 (out in semis) and 200m (out in heats) breaststroke at the 2011 world championships in Shanghai in July. It was Guerniou who set the ball rolling after judging Duboscq's technique to have "completely broken down". 

Deterioration had been steady over the course of five or six years, Duboscq tells the paper - and when asked how he managed to win "all those medals" down the years, the swimmer replied: "In 2005 and 2008 my stroke was in place but it was a bit of a stroke of luck, it was never a given. In 2009, the suits [non-textile] corrected my technique to a tremendous extent."

Then came a scooter accident in 2010, after whist Paparrodopoulos and Masclaux set about rebuilding Duboscq in time for the European Championships in Budapest that year.

But it was not until the disappointments of Shanghai that Duboscq demanded a change. "Shanghai was hard to live through," he tells L'Equipe. 

"Change was needed. It was this year or never. I've known Christos since I was 12 or 13 years old but for all the good level of work on technique, I think I can do better with [Benoît Masclaux]. I have chosen the best middleman," says Duboscq, now a 30-year-old with a family of his own. 

For his part, Paparrodopoulos is clearly not convinced, telling Glo: "I work on technique in training, not as a thing apart." Duboscq's bigger problem this summer past, he believed was fatigue and a lack of competition build-up. The coach then asks: "Do all people who win swim perfectly?"