Laure Manaudou

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Laure Manaudou in 2005.

Laure Manaudou (born October 9, 1986 in Villeurbanne) is a Olympic, World and European French champion swimmer .

1 Career
2 Honour
3 Prize list
4 External links

[edit] Career

Manaudou currently holds the world record for the 400 m freestyle and 200 m freestyle.

She won the gold medal in the Women's 400 m Freestyle at the 2004 Athens Olympics. That was France's first ever gold medal in women's swimming and the first gold medal won by a French man or woman since Jean Boiteux's triumph in the 400 m men's freestyle event in Helsinki in 1952. Manaudou won the silver medal in the Women's 800 m freestyle at the same Olympics. In that race, she had a quick start but was passed down the stretch by Ai Shibata from Japan. She took the bronze medal at the Women's 100 m backstroke. She thus became only the second Frenchwoman to win three medals in a single Summer or Winter Olympic Games. The first was the late track and field athlete Micheline Ostermeyer in London in 1948.

She is currently tied for second (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, Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli and Félicia Ballanger. The all-time leader is the fencer Laura Flessel-Colovic, who has five Olympic medals.

She won three gold medals at the 2004 European Swimming Championships in Madrid for the 100 m backstroke, 400 m freestyle, and the 4x100 m team medley.

On July 24, 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 May 12, 2006, as she broke Evans' world record of 4:03.85 during the final of the French championship in Tours with the time of 4:03.03.

On August 6, 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, 4x200 m team freestyle and 4x100 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).

She broke the 200m freestyle world record at the World Swimming Championships in Melbourne in winning the final. She also won the 400m freeytle event, obtained a silver for the 100m backstroke and the 800m freestyle, and a bronze for 4x200m freestyle relay. She was leading the race in the 800m 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 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle titles at the same World Championships.

Her coach is Philippe Lucas. Her club was Melun-Dammarie, and in 2006 she moved to Le Canet en Roussillon. Her mother Olga Schippers is of Dutch origin, and played badminton in her native country.

She is currently engaged to Italian swimmer Luca Marin.

[edit] Honour

2004 : Knight of the French Légion d'honneur

[edit] Prize list

Event	Olympics Games	World Championships		European Championships
Event	2004 in Athens Greece	2005 in Montréal Canada	2007 in Melbourne Australia	2004 in Madrid Spain	2006 in Budapest Hungary
200 m Freestyle			1st 1'55"52 WR		3rd 1'58"38
400 m Freestyle	1st 4'05"34	1st 4'06"44	1st 4'02"61 CR	1st 4'07"90	1st 4'02"13 WR
800 m Freestyle	2nd 8'24"96		2nd 8'18"80 ER		1st 8'19"29 ER
4x200 m Freestyle			3rd 7'55"96 NR		3rd 7'56"44
100 m Backstroke	3rd 1'00"88		2nd 59"87 ER	1st 1'00"93	1st 1'00"88
200 m Individual Medley					1st 2'12"69
4x100 m Medley Relay				1st 4'05"96	3rd 4'03"64