FINA Marathon Swim World Series 2022 – Marc-Antoine Olivier

Setubal Soundbites | Open water elites give insight into what to expect in the Marathon Swim World Series opener

Next we caught up with Marc-Antoine Olivier, the Frenchman with a history of launching ferocious – and successful – late-race attacks.  Following up on his sporting philosophy of “wanting to make history in my sport,” the 2017 winner of both the FINA and LEN Best Male Open Water Swimmer Award winner whose sporting exploits also earned him a Knight of the Order of Merit by the French Government, Olivier made his intentions known that he has his eye on the FINA Marathon Swim World Series 2022 overall crown.

Marc-Antoine, how are you feeling and how do you like this course?

I’m very happy to be here. This is the first World Series event of the season so it’s important to begin good on this beautiful sea. It’s perfect for a good race tomorrow.

 What are your expectations for the race?

I think it’s going to take a lot of strategy because there’s the waves and current. Before the race, I’ll really need to fix a good strategy as I hope to win tomorrow.

This is kind of the last big race before the FINA World Championships. And while you probably have not yet started tapering yet for this competition, how do you use this for your world championship preparation?

The preparation is different like this because we’ll be racing in wetsuits and I think the world championship will be in swimsuits. It’s important because I want to win the overall classification. It’s the first race of the season and it’s important to begin well. I take on this competition with pleasure.

There is a buoy turn 150 meters before the finish. How will you try and position yourself?

I think the best position is to pass the last buoy first because for those last metres before the finish line we have the current at our back. I think that the first person to pass the last buuy will win tomorrow so getting there first is very important.

Any final thoughts going into the opener?

We have so many good swimmers here. Paltrinieri, Rasovszky, and several others. We have lots of swimmers that can win tomorrow so it’s going to be a very good race.