A wealth of European swimming talent will gather in the French capital this weekend to take part in the 2026 Giant Open at the Olympic Aquatics Centre that was built for the Paris 2024 Games – and which will host this summer’s European Aquatics Championships.
Many of the 200 French and international athletes involved in the three-day competition which starts tomorrow showed early-season form at last weekend’s Edinburgh International and Lausanne Cup events.
France’s Maxime Grousset, the world 50m and 100m butterfly champion, won both those events in Lausanne, where his 50m time of 22.78 was the fastest in the world this year.
Dutch world 100m freestyle champion Marrit Steenbergen, who departed last December’s EA Short Course Championships in Lublin with six golds, is another high profile entrant. Apart from contesting the event she won at the last two World Aquatics Championships, she is also down to race the 50 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 50 backstroke and 100 backstroke.
Meanwhile Britain’s 31-year-old triple Olympic gold medallist Adam Peaty, who earned a 50m breaststroke victory in Edinburgh as he took part in his first long-course racing since taking joint 100m breaststroke silver at the Paris 2024 Games, is also in the lists.
Other home athletes who will be in action in the capital include Paris 2024 women’s 1500m silver medallist Anastasia Kirpichnikova, Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, who partnered Grousset in the team that claimed Paris 2024 men’s 4x100m medley bronze, Marc-Antoine Olivier, 10km open water bronze medallist at the Rio 2016 Games, four-times European gold medallist Marie Wattel and Beryl Gastaldello, who has won two world 4x100m mixed freestyle bronzes.
Peaty’s compatriots present will include 22-year-old Angharad Evans, whose 100m and 200m breaststroke times in Edinburgh of 1:05.46 and 2:22.31 put her second on this year’s world list in both events.
Also on the start lists are Italy’s world 50m breaststroke champion Simone Cerasuolo, Turkey’s 2024 European outdoor 50m breaststroke gold medallist
Olympic 200m backstroke silver medalist Apostolos Christou will be among the 12 Greeks in Paris, and he plans to compete in the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke.
Meanwhile the three-day China Open is underway featuring strong home team and top European talents such as Germany’s Olympic and world 400m freestyle champion and record holder Lukas Maertens and Italy’s Paris 2024 100m breaststroke champion Nicolo Martinenghi.
Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
