Artistic swimmers bring first medal to French delegation at European Championships

The French artistic swimming team, in Rome, August 11, 2022. ANDREW MEDICHINI / AP It has been fifteen years since the French artistic swimming team had not won a medal in the discipline. Thursday August 11, in Rome, Ambre Esnault, Laura Gonzalez, Mayssa Guermoud, Oriane Jaillardon, Maureen Jenkins, Romane Lunel, Eve Planeix and Charlotte Tremble adorned themselves with bronze in the team technical event (ballet of eight swimmers performing figures imposed) during the European championships. With a score of 88.0093 points, Les Bleues, who played to music by the group Daft Punk, are behind Ukraine (92.5106) and Italy (90.3772). After their fourth place at the Worlds in June in Budapest (Hungary), the swimmers, trained by Julie Fabre, were keen to get on the podium. Before the competition, the latter had expressed her ambitions: “If we don’t reach the podium, I won’t be proud. This will mean that we have something less than a month ago in Budapest. ” Read also: The Bleues of artistic swimming dream of a European podium The last French medal in an international artistic swimming competition was in gold and had been won, in individual freestyle, by Virginie Dedieu at the 2017 world championships. More Earlier in the day, Eve Planeix qualified for the individual free final, finishing fifth in the heats (with a score of 88.1667 points). Next stage for the French team: the free team elimination round, Saturday August 13, at 9.30 a.m. Ludivine Ducellier and Eloïse Fine