Léon Marchand, a world record shattered and a successful bet at the Singapore World Championships

Still short of breath, his body soaked and the outline of his eyes still marked by his glasses when Léon Marchand presented himself on Wednesday, July 30, in front of the few French journalists present in Singapore. They had all come for this, it was already in the can. "Thank you for letting us know," said a colleague upon his arrival. On the face of the Toulouse native, a smile stretched from ear to ear. For good reason: he had just broken the world record in the 200m medley (1 min 52 s 69), in the semi-finals of the world swimming championships .

"I told you so," Léon Marchand retorted immediately. You can be a four-time Olympic champion and still be wrong. A correction is therefore necessary. That same morning, after the heats, the Frenchman had announced that he would try "to get close to [his] best time" in the event. Admittedly, this was six hundredths of a second off the world record held by American Ryan Lochte, which had stood since July 28, 2011 (1 min 54 s). But shaving one and three tenths of a second off that record was something no one saw coming. Not even the person concerned.

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