At the Bordeaux Meet in France, Camelia Potec, the Romanian winner of the 200m freestyle at Athens 2004, clocked 8:32.26 over 800m freestyle and an hour and a half later a 16:24.03 over 1,500m in the midst of some of the heaviest workloads of her life under the guidance of coach Philippe Lucas at Canet-en-Roussillon.

The time sends no fireworks into the sky by set against a best time of 8:29 from 2004, when she was testing her fitness in readiness for that 200m victory in Greece, the runes read well: Potec is covering 18km a day in training right now.

The 1,500m time was a personal best by three seconds. Potec is clearly being changed by the Lucas regime. Her training partner, Nicolas Rostoucher, who made the move from Mulhouse to Canet long before Lucas's former charge, Laure Manaudou, decided to head to Mulhouse in the wake of an Italian summer turned sour, clocked 8:00.20 over 800m freestyle.