‘Rough diamond’ Laure a splash with the media
The star of the 2007 world championships hit stormy waters — personally and professionally — following a split with her coach and a move to Italy after falling in love with Italian swimmer Luca Marin.
However, the romance ended in tears when Manaudou finally flung back Marin’s ring in a very public spat.
Olympic watchers were aghast and the people mags delighted, hyping up the incident involving France’s hope for multi-gold next summer.
“It’s the craziest year I have ever had,” admitted Manaudou, after staking her career and her all to be close to her Italian ex-beau.
But the 20-year-old Olympic champion maintains that her 2008 Beijing Games campaign is very much on track and the agony and the ecstasy of 2007 will not sink her.
The latest drama involves a series of explicit pictures of the French star on the internet. Already a French minister is leading official outrage over the pictures.
“I think it’s scandalous, cowardly, pathetic, any word you can think of to describe a case like this,” France’s secretary of state for sports Bernard Laporte said.
“Let her focus on her swimming, that is what she enjoys. She needs to be strong, to be tough, but I know that she is. Three days and this will all be over, no one will talk about it any more,” added Laporte.
Last Sunday, lurid pictures showing a naked Manaudou started circulating on the Internet. Her ex, Marin has denied all responsibility: “I have nothing to do with any of this,” he said. “I was extremely pained to see these pictures, and I was told that a French website claimed they were put online by me or with my consent. That’s all nonsense.”
But the swimmer’s brother Nicolas Manaudou, who took over as her coach when she returned from Italy recently, said he was furious.
“I hope whoever did this will be made to pay, and more than just a bit,” he said.
Manaudou’s lawyer, Didier Poulmaire, declined to comment, but several websites that initially published the pictures have since withdrawn them.
“I want Laure to know she has our full support and encouragement,” Laporte added.
“People don’t care about what was published. That’s not what they’ll remember about her. What they’ll remember is the medals she’s going to win at the next Olympics“, added French judo champion David Douillet.
“The people around her need to take care of this, for her to concentrate on what she does best.”
Manaudou’s year opened with a flourish with the reigning Olympic 400m champion setting a world record in the 200m on her way to completing the 200m and the 400m freestyle double and winning two silver and a bronze in March at the world championships in Melbourne.
Her romance with Marin delighted photographers at the Australian games, who dogged the couple to catch them kissing and hugging.
Three months later she dropped a bombshell. Tired of the gruelling training sessions by her mentor Philippe Lucas and pining for Marin, she announced she was leaving for Italy.
The move would not only bring her closer to Marin with whom she fell in love in 2006, but allow her to flee Lucas’ daily training requirement of 17 kilometres.
“The decision is taken, I will remain in Italy until the end of my career,” she said.
She joined the LaPresse Nuoto club in Turin, while French trainer Claude Fauquet prepared to go to and fro to coach one of the country’s best hopes for the Beijing Games.
However, the move led to questions over whether Manaudou could succeed without Lucas, credited with making this “rough diamond” shine.
The sceptics were given further fuel when the Italian club sacked her on August 6, citing attitude problems, including a lack of motivation and offhandedness.
After the rumpus in Italy, Manaudou returned to her family home in central France and said she would now be trained by her 21-year-old brother, Nicolas.
She made a triumphant return in Berlin in mid-November, reviving hopes for multi-gold in Beijing. She appeared to have radically changed: more relaxed and smiling according to some, ‘more humane’ according to others.
But the year is ending with another bombshell. At the European short-course championships, she won gold in the 100m backstroke and 400 metres freestyle, but grabbed headlines for casting off the ring Marin gave her in a bitter and ugly changing-room spat in front of other swimmers.
“I think that when one is young, one makes mistakes. And if you make mistakes, you can repair them later,” she said.
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