Yoris Grandjean (born 20 March 1989) is a Belgian swimmer, who specialized in sprint freestyle events.[1] He won two gold medals at the 2006 FINA Youth World Swimming Championships, and later represented Belgium at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Since 2009, he still currently holds a Belgian record (22.13) in the 50 m freestyle from the national championships in Antwerp.[2][3] Grandjean also trains for Liège Swimming Club (French: Club Natation Liège) under his head coach Andre Henvaux.[4]
Grandjean made his international debut at the 2006 FINA Youth World Swimming Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he achieved a total of three medals, and established multiple meet records: two golds each in the 50 m freestyle (22.74) and 100 m freestyle (50.32), and a silver in the 200 m freestyle (1:52.20).[5][6]
Entering his senior season, Grandjean competed in a sprint freestyle double at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He achieved a FINA A-standard entry time of 49.09 (100 m freestyle) after finishing sixth from the European Championships in Eindhoven, Netherlands.[7][8] In the 100 m freestyle, Grandjean placed nineteenth on the morning prelims. Swimming in heat seven, he blasted a new Belgian record of 48.82 in a Speedo techsuit, but narrowly missed the semifinal cut by only 0.27 of a second.[9][10] Two days later, in the 50 m freestyle, Grandjean put up an astonishing swim with a fourth-place time and a Belgian record of 22.45 in heat nine, edging out Finland's Matti Rajakylä by a small fraction of a second. Grandjean failed to advance into the semifinals, as he placed twenty-eighth overall out of 97 swimmers in the prelims.[11][12]