Sunday, March 15, 2009

Fred Bousquet: "I felt like I was stabbed in the back, not by the U.S., but by my federation,"



Above is Fred Bousquet breaking a US Open record in the 50-m free. Bousquet was interviewed at the Austin Grand Prix and was quite candid about his disappointment over the French loss in the 4x100 relay in Beijing. His reasons succinct, logical, and I believe he is correct.

Here is what the American Statesman has quoted him as saying:

"First of all, I would have swam in the middle of my lane," he explained. Drifting to the ropes, and unintentionally aiding Lezak was one of the tactical mistakes the big Frenchman made.

"I also would have saved something for the final 50," Bousquet added

"It's seven months ago and I'm still angry," Bousquet said. "I'll use that for motivation this year. ..."

[Link]

There is more hot rhetoric from the Frenchman and of course Bernard gets misquoted with that "we will smash them" threat which never happened but the article is worth a read.

Finally, Fred Bousquet swims at Auburn; I love that for swimming knows no borders accept when it is race day.

Watch the video above, Gold Medal Mel makes a cameo!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7944959.stm

Anonymous said...

That sounds like some first rate player hating. He slights Lezaks performance by saying he was riding Bernard and blames Bernard for the loss. T

Tony Austin said...

Didn't Jason say he was riding his wave?

Anonymous said...

This is a great blog to learn more about competitive swimming or just keep up. When I watched this video clip, they are swimming freestyle, not the fly as you wrote. Keep the good stuff coming, thank you.

Tony Austin said...

Again, thank you for the typo catch.