French sprint star Florent Manaudou warned yesterday he has what it takes to recapture the 50-metre Olympic swimming title in Rio next August.
The 25-year-old world short-course record holder over the distance claimed a surprise victory at the London Games four years ago.
“The aim is to win at any price,” he told AFP in an interview.
“I managed to swim much faster than the level I had four years ago. I produced a magical race that day, I hope to do it again. In any case I’ve more weapons than four years ago to win.”
A win would see Manaudou follow in the footsteps of Russia’s Alexander Popov and American Gary Hall Jr, who successfully defended their Olympic 50m titles.
“I’ve gained a certain maturity in this event. I’m used to world championships, the Olympics over 50m, I know how to manage the heats, the semis, manage the pressure,” continued Manaudou, younger brother of former Olympic women’s swimming champion Laure Manaudou.
“Having a perfect race in an Olympic finals is still quite rare, but it’s the ideal time.”
Manaudou had been hoping to pull off a 50m-100m freestyle double in August but failed to qualify for the latter at French nationals.
He will nevertheless still swim a 100m in Rio as one of the 4x100m relay team and where France will defend their Olympic title.
After Rio the four-time world gold medallist plans to continue competing.
“There’s a 99 percent chance that I will continue at least one year because the last title I had is the world championships and it means a lot to me.
“I’d really like to defend my title in Budapest (2017), it’s a city that has been good to the France team. For the moment I’m taking it year by year. I think I’m not far from my best level.”