A former professional swimmer, European medalist, junior world and European champion, Madelon Catteau speaks about water with rare precision. For her, swimming comes down to neither the record book nor pure performance. It is also a way of inhabiting the gesture, of recovering her sensations, of understanding what connects the body to the water.
Through her words, it becomes clear that performance is never separate from feeling, and that a Piece done right must allow only one thing: to let the movement fully exist.
« Today, swimming is an outlet. A way to let go, alone with my sensations and my thoughts. »
The first bond with water
My very first memory tied to water goes back to the Nakache pool in Toulouse, at swim school, where I discovered my first dives.
Today, swimming means something else. It's an outlet. A way to let go, alone with my sensations and my thoughts.
If there is one precise moment in the stroke where I feel exactly in my place, it's the exit from the underwater glide. That passage from immersion beneath the surface up to the top, almost drawn forward.
« The exit from the underwater glide. That passage from immersion beneath the surface up to the top, almost drawn forward. »
What performance really asks for
When I swim at my best, what I feel above all is a sensation of glide, with clean, powerful catches that propel me while I stay in control of my effort.
For me, performance in swimming is first a question of technique. That's the base. Once it's mastered, power in the catch makes all the difference.
Sensation, in turn, is essential. I think that when the sensations are good, performance follows almost naturally.
Here, everything holds together: the glide, the catch, the control, the technique. Performance doesn't appear as something you tear away, but as something you build through precision. Not against the water, but with it.
« When the sensations are good, performance follows almost naturally. »
What a Piece must allow in the water
In the water, what I expect from a Piece first is hold and hydrodynamics above all. Then the aesthetic, which remains our only way of expressing a form of style as swimmers.
I know immediately that a Piece is right for me when the suit holds and the water glides with no parasitic drag that could create resistance.
A good suit changes everything mentally. It's like stepping into a role. Some almost become suits that swim fast.
It's not only a question of hold or cut. It's also a question of inner state. A Piece done right doesn't add noise. It clarifies. It accompanies. It gives confidence. It lets you enter your stroke with more certainty.
« A good suit changes everything mentally. It's like stepping into a role. »
What Drop makes possible
What immediately spoke to me in the Drop world is its minimalist approach in service of performance: making the beautiful effective.
When I wear a DROP Piece in the water, what strikes me most is the hold, especially with an open-back cut. It's fairly rare with a cut like that to have no compromise on performance.
And Shape the Water, for me, is finding a true continuity between the body and the water. As if everything were designed to be high-performing without you even noticing.
In that continuity, there is something very right. The idea that the Piece must neither impose itself, nor distract, nor constrain. Only accompany the body as close as possible to what it seeks in the water: line, confidence, precision, fluidity.
« Shape the Water is about finding a true continuity between the body and the water. »
Shape the Water.
