Charlotte swimmers make a splash overseas

Members of SwimMAC’s Team Elite group made the front page of Marseille’s largest newspaper, La Provence, after nine Charlotte swimmers traveled with Coach David Marsh to France to compete in the Mare Nostrum series.

After all the swimmers competed in the first meet of the series in Canet-en-Roussillon, Micah Lawrence and Mark Weber went to Barcelona to compete in the second meet. The rest of the team trained at Cercle des Nageurs de Marseille.

Marseille was particularly excited to host U.S. Olympian and Team Elite member Ryan Lochte at CNM.

The front page of La Provence shows a photo of Lochte with the headline, “Lochte, an American, at CNM.” The caption reads, “The swimmer with five olympic titles (second from left) trains until tomorrow in the CNM pools alongside Frédérick Bousquet, Fabien Gilot, Grégory Mallet, and even Florent Manaudou.”

Gilot, Manaudou, and Mallet are French Olympians. Mallet previously spent several months in training with SwimMAC in Charlotte.

Team Elite will finish their trip overseas by competing June 13-14 in the final meet of the Mare Nostrum series in Monaco.

From left to right: Michael Chadwick, Alyssa Marsh, Ryan Lochte, David Marsh, Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, Kathleen Baker, Matthew Josa.

This story was originally published June 12, 2015 at 4:04 PM with the headline "Charlotte swimmers make a splash overseas."