FLASH! Mary-Ambre Moluh Downs European 100 Back Record To Lead Home French 1-3
Mary-Ambre Moluh took down her European 100 back record in 57.94 as she clinched the title in front of a jubilant home crowd in Paris.
The 20-year-old was the first European woman to break 58secs when she went 57.99 on the leadoff as the French quartet won the mixed medley relay on the second night of competition in the French capital.
Moluh was 0.31 inside at the halfway mark in 27.73 before coming home in 30.21 for a record-breaking gold ahead of Marrit Steenbergen (58.46) with Pauline Mahieu making it a France 1-3 in 58.77.
It was a third trip to the podium for Moluh, who swims with Cal in the US collegiate system, following her relay gold and 50 back silver.
She is the third Frenchwoman to win the title and follows in the slipstream of the great Laure Manaudou in 2004 – months before she won three medals at Athens 2004 – and 2006. Christine Caron won the title in 1966, two years after Olympic silver in Tokyo.
It had demanded some resilience from Moluh who’d began to feel some stress and nerves creeping in as the effects of a few days racing accumulated.
“It was guts,” reported L’Union. “I don’t know, I tried to reassure myself as much as I could. I said to myself: ‘here, it’s you who did less than 58 seconds, it’s not the others’. I tried to motivate myself a little bit, to tell myself: ‘it’s good, it’s good, I’m capable of it’. And then the last 15 metres, I told myself that it was really the mental side that I was going to have to go for them. That’s what I did, let’s say. And what’s more, with Pauline (Mahieu, bronze), on the podium too, I’m super happy. We were talking about it, to make a double, to make an impression. In addition, she does a great time, so it’s great for the French backstroke, here, in France, in Paris, at home.”
