PARIS (AFP) — Olympic 400m champion Laure Manaudou, tipped as France's top hope of swimming gold at the Beijing Games, has opted to train at the club of her new boyfriend in Mulhouse, the club president confirmed on Saturday.
Manaudou, who has been splashed over the gossip sheets in recent weeks after lurid pictures showing her naked started circulating on the Internet, will now train alongside boyfriend Benjamin Stasiulis in Mulhouse.
Mulhouse president Laurent Horter confirmed that Manaudou would be joining their club.
"It's confirmed but there still remains some details to sort out," he said.
"I can tell you that Laure is delighted to come to Mulhouse. To be able to bring together her life as a top level sportswomen and that of a woman I think it's good, it's almost like a film, it's 'Pretty Woman', it's wonderful."
The triple world champion was attracted by being able to train regularly in a 50-metre pool alongside top-level swimmers, including Stasiulis, Amaury Leveaux and Aurore Mongel.
One of the stars of last year's world championships, the 21-year-old Manaudou has had a turbulent year following a split with her coach last May and a move to Italy after falling in love with Italian swimmer Luca Marin.
She was expelled from the LaPresse Nuoto club in Turin for disciplinary reasons in August and has since been coached by her younger brother Nicolas.
Her romance with Marin ended in a very public spat, at the height of the European short-course championships in Hungary. He denied responsibility for the lurid pictures which were subsequently circulated on the Internet.
Manaudou, who has spoken or her worries about preparing alone for the Olympics which start in August, is currently training at high altitude at Font Romeu in the Pyrenees with the French women's team and members of the Mulhouse club.
But the swimmer herself insisted no firm decision has been made.
"At this stage I haven't made any decision concerning a change of training base," Manaudou said in a statement issued through her lawyer Didier Poulmaire.
"Taking into account the constraints of training alone I'm simply pondering the possibility of joining a group structure with a view to preparations for the Beijing Olympic Games.
"With this in mind and in agreement with the French federation I've decided to follow several training sessions with the group of Mulhouse next week during my training at Font-Romeu."
She added that she had learned a lot from "this group experience" for her preparations for the Beijing Games.
At Mulhouse she will be coached by Horter, who led Roxana Maracineanu to a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics and a world title in 1998.
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