Camille Muffat

Camille Muffat (; 28 October 1989 – 9 March 2015) was a French swimmer and three-time Olympic medalist who specialised in the individual medley and the free style events. Her career spanned from 2005 to 2014.

At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she won gold in the 400-metre freestyle, silver in the 200-metre freestyle and bronze in the 4×200-metre freestyle relay, becoming the fourth French swimmer to win an individual Olympic gold medal. She was also the third French athlete overall to win three Olympic medals at a single edition of the Olympic Games.

She died in the Villa Castelli mid-air helicopter collision, at age 25, during the filming of French TV reality show Dropped for the TF1 network.

Early life Camille Marie Manuella Muffat was born on 28 October 1989 in Nice, to Guy Muffat, a physical therapist, and Laurence, a nurse. She had an older sister, Chloé, and a younger brother, Quentin.

Upon finishing high school, she pursued a degree in economics, during which time she swam under a high-performance athlete studying system. She eventually dropped out of school in order to pursue her swimming career. Choosing the latter, Muffat improved her results in freestyle swimming, taking first place in all distances (50 m, 100 m, 200 m and 400 m) at the following French Championships, at Chartre, where she also broke the French record in the 100 m freestyle event.

A month later, at the 2010 World Short Course Championships in Dubai, Muffat would take her first world title, by winning the 200 m freestyle event, defeating Katie Hoff of the United States and Kylie Palmer of Australia. Swimming with the French 4 × 200 m freestyle relay, she also took a bronze medal from the event.

In 2011, Muffat repeated the feat of winning all four distances (100 m, 200 m, 400 m and 800 m) at the French Championships in Strasbourg, thus also qualifying in all events for that year's World Championships, in Shanghai, China. At the World Championships Muffat took two bronze medals, in the 200 m and the 400 m freestyle events.

2012–2014 In March 2012, at the French Championships in Dunkerque, Muffat won the 400 m freestyle event by breaking Laure Manaudou's French record, established in 2006. Her time of 4:01:13 was the world's fastest of the year at the time, and earned her a berth in that year's Olympic Games. Two days later, Muffat would also win the 200 m freestyle event, breaking her own French record with a time of 1:54:87, thus qualifying for that event as well at the Olympic Games in London.

Muffat qualified to enter three events at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She won the gold medal in the 400 m freestyle with a new Olympic record, as well as the silver medal in the 200 m freestyle event. Also, her 4 × 200 m freestyle team won the bronze medal in a time of 7:47.49. [Camille Muffat (1:55.51); Charlotte Bonnet (1:57.78); Ophélie-Cyrielle Étienne (1:58.05); Coralie Balmy (1:56.15)]. She thus equalled Laure Manaudou's 2004 Olympics achievement of one gold, one silver and one bronze, and also became only the third Frenchwoman after Micheline Ostermeyer and Manaudou to win three medals in a single summer or winter Olympic Games.

In April 2013, at the French Championships in Rennes, she won the 400 m freestyle event for a third consecutive time, while also winning the 100 m and 200 m freestyle events, which qualified her for all three events at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, Spain.

Her performance at the 2013 World Championships, however, were below expectations, with Muffat taking home the bronze medals, in the 200 m freestyle and the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. In her signature 400 m freestyle event, however, she finished a disappointing seventh in the final.

After the World Championships, Muffat decided to cut down on her training routine temporarily, and took a gold, a silver and a bronze at the 2013 French Short Course Championships in Dijon. At that year's European Championships, however, she failed to qualify for the 200 m freestyle final, and finished fifth in the 400 m.

At the 2014 French Championships in Chartres, a qualifying event for the 2014 European Championships, Muffat won four titles, taking gold in the 100 m, 200 m and 400 m freestyle, as well as in the 100 m butterfly. She also took silver in the 50 m freestyle.

However, on 12 July 2014, before the European Championships, she announced her retirement from competitive swimming at age 24, during an interview to the French newspaper, L'Équipe.

Death

On 9 March 2015, as a part of a group of sports stars participating in the French reality TV show Dropped, Muffat was killed along with nine other people when two helicopters collided in mid-air during filming in northwestern Argentina. Her funeral was held in a private ceremony in the Church of St. John the Baptist, in Nice, on 25 March, in a joint service with boxer Alexis Vastine, who died in the same accident.

Earnings, sponsorships and accolades Muffat's agent, Sophie Kamoun, refused to disclose details concerning the income earned by Muffat in commercial endorsements. The French newspaper Le Figaro estimated her earnings for 2013 at almost €500,000.

She signed a sponsorship deal with Électricité de France ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games, and the French Olympic Committee also pays money prizes for athletes earning medals at the games.

On 1 January 2013, Muffat was made a Knight (Chevalier) of the Légion d'honneur.

In November 2015, Muffat was posthumously inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2016.