Léon Marchand - LIVE: What time is the final? His schedule for the World Swimming Championships
Frenchman Léon Marchand, hero of the Paris Olympics, is making his return to the World Swimming Championships in Singapore. He will compete in the 200m individual medley final this Thursday, 24 hours after breaking the world record by more than a second in the semi-final.
The "evening" session in Singapore will begin at 1:02 p.m. French time with the women's 200m butterfly final. No French women are entered. The women's 100m freestyle semifinals will follow, with Béryl Gastaldello chasing a spot in the grand final. Then it will be the turn of the famous 200m medley final with Léon Marchand. It is scheduled for 1:23 p.m., just before another grand final, the 100m freestyle with Maxime Grousset, who is aiming for a second medal after the gold medal won in the 50m butterfly.
The iconic American coach Bob Bowman, formerly Michael Phelps' coach, is training Léon Marchand in Austin but is not present at the World Championships this year, leaving the Frenchman's support to his Toulouse coach Nicolas Castel. The American still followed the race from the United States. "I called Nico directly. We quickly congratulated each other, before discussing what Léon needed to do, his recovery, and how to plan for the day (this Thursday). As for Léon, I texted him via WhatsApp what he needed to improve for the final." Yes, there is clearly still room for improvement when you smash a world record by more than a second...
Léon Marchand was quick to analyze his record-breaking race in Wednesday's semifinals, but clearly wanted to dwell on the details. The Frenchman did, however, savor his performance for a few moments. "I think it's all the power work I've done this year. I'm taking on more water, and in the butterfly, I'm trying to really turn my arms as much as possible to reach the wall," he told L'Equipe newspaper. "I didn't think too much about the technical side of things. Afterward, the backstroke became my strength, whereas before, it was my worst stroke. In the breaststroke, I still had legs, so I tried to build up to 50. And in the crawl, I gave it my all. The crawl was really difficult, so obviously I was going at a pretty fast pace."
Asked about his performance in the semi-final on Wednesday, Léon Marchand admitted that he had also lifted a weight by beating this world record, which he had already come very close to (6 hundredths of a second) in the final of the last Olympic Games. "That was also kind of the goal," he told the newspaper L'Equipe. "And above all, I had two chances to do it, I took each chance one after the other. I'm going to try to sleep well - it's going to be complicated - but the final is going to be cool."
The Frenchman will face a number of well-known rivals in the 200m medley final this Thursday, including training partners like Shaine Casas, Carson Foster and Hubert Kos. With his time of 1'52"69, Léon Marchand seems untouchable but will have to manage the fatigue born from his incredible semi-final to get ahead of opponents who are also improving with times in 1'55 for the best in the semi-final. We will therefore find in the final the American Shaine Casas, 2nd in the semi-finals (1'55"13), the British Duncan Scott (1'55''51), the New Zealander Lewis Clareburt (1'57"29) and the Chinese Shun Wang (1'57''48). From the first semi-final played before Marchand's record, we will also find the Japanese Tomoyuki Matsushita (1'57''11), the American Carson Foster (1'57''22) and the Hungarian Hubert Kos (1'57''49). Note that the Japanese Kozuke Makino was eliminated.
On Wednesday, during the semi-finals, Léon Marchand set a new world record, erasing American Ryan Lochte's time from 2011. Relive the historic finish of Léon Marchand's race in video, as he set a stratospheric world record in the 200m medley.
"I was surprised by the atmosphere, it really pushed me to my limits," said Léon Marchand on France TV after his fabulous world record in the 200m medley semi-final. "I was able to really express myself, but there's one more race tomorrow, the final. Tomorrow, that's going to be the goal, to try to win, it's going to be a tough final, all my friends are in it, and 1'55 is still solid." Solid, but almost three seconds off the Frenchman's time... A chasm!
Alone in the world, Léon Marchand completely dominated these 200m medley semi-finals. However, he still has one race to go to win the gold medal. The final will take place Thursday in Singapore. The Frenchman will face American Shaine Casas, 2nd in the semi-finals (1:55.13), Great Britain's Duncan Scott (1:55.51), New Zealand's Lewis Clareburt (1:57.29), and China's Shun Wang (1:57.48). Also competing in the first semi-final are Japan's Tomoyuki Matsushita (1:57.11), American Carson Foster (1:57.22), and Hungary's Hubert Kos (1:57.49). All light years behind the Frenchman's time, who hit very hard...
"I'm so happy, I wanted to get this record, I didn't know when but I felt really good during the warm-up. We talked about it with Bob (Bowman, his coach, editor's note), we said that maybe this was the day to do it. But 1'52 seems a bit unreal to me."
Léon Marchand has just broken a new world record, the 200m medley in 1:52.69, compared to 1:54.00 for Ryan Lochte in 2011. The American's record has been shattered. The Frenchman has set the first world record in these World Championships and thus pocketed a check for 30,000 euros. Even before the final...
1'52''69: Léon Marchand has just broken the 200m medley world record, which he had held in Paris last year, in the semi-finals. And he's smashed it, wiping Ryan Lochte's record of 1'54''00!
The backstroke length is complete, the breaststroke length is well underway, and Marchand takes off. He's clearly ahead of Ryan Lochte's world record and doesn't seem to be holding back. We might be witnessing a moment of history, as he's 1.88 seconds ahead before the final crawl length.
Léon Marchand's flow is good, he hangs on to the American Shane Casas in butterfly to start this 200m medley.
The second semi-final is underway, with Léon Marchand posting a time of 1:57.63 this morning in the heats. China's Shun Wang, the 2021 Olympic champion, is competing with him in this semi-final. Britain's Duncan Scott, Olympic runner-up, is also at the start, as is American Shane Casas, Marchand's teammate in Austin.
It's a little faster than this morning's heats. Japan's Matsushita wins ahead of Hubert Kos in 1:57.22 and Carson Foster. Makino takes 4th place.
Léon Marchand was born on May 17, 2002 in Toulouse and is the son of two former swimmers: Xavier Marchand, silver medalist at the 200m medley world championships in 1998, and Céline Bonnet, backstroke swimmer and medley specialist, who notably participated in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. His uncle, Christophe, is also a former Olympic swimmer, now the sports director of a swimming pool in Clichy. The young Léon has obviously been swimming in pools since he was very young, even if he had a preference for judo and rugby before embarking on his parents' footsteps, going so far as to be crowned French champion in the 200m butterfly in Rennes in 2019, making him the first French swimmer to achieve such a title at the age of 17. A few months later, he won a bronze medal in the 400m medley and the 200m breaststroke at the 2019 European Junior Championships. At the 2022 World Swimming Championships in Budapest, he left with three medals, including two gold. His biggest achievement came at the 2024 Paris Olympics, with four individual gold medals (200m medley, 400m medley, 200m butterfly, and 200m breaststroke), plus one with the French men's 4x100m medley relay.
Léon Marchand comes from a lineage of swimmers. His mother is simply Céline Bonnet, a backstroke specialist and multiple French champion. His father, Xavier Marchand, was a world vice-champion in the 200m medley in Perth, Australia, in 1998.
The French swimmer, a specialist in the 400m medley, is a big figure in the world of swimming and measures 1.83m according to the latest data from the FFN.
The day after the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where he reached his first Olympic final, finishing 6th, Léon Marchand packed his bags to join Arizona State University and a certain Bob Bowman, former mentor of a certain Michael Phelps. The young prodigy has since continued to progress and impressed the United States. He made headlines there in May 2022 when he broke the NCAA record for the 200-yard individual medley, previously held by Caeleb Dressel. A performance congratulated by... Michael Phelps on Instagram.
Beyond the results in the pool, Léon Marchand has simply evolved since leaving for the United States, as he explained to 20 minutes in June 2022. "In bodybuilding, I did more "weightlifting", more explosiveness. I am much more powerful. Mentally, I gained autonomy and a lot of experience because I swam a lot in the NCAA (the university championship in the United States). I did a lot of races, a lot of relays. In competition, I can now throw myself at the wall to win the race. I swam a lot with Bob (Bowman). I improved my backstroke, my crawl. I have more assets than before. I swim faster, quite simply." After his raid at the Paris Olympics, Léon Marchand, having turned professional, can no longer compete in NCAA competition but followed Bob Bowman's training group in Texas.
Based in the USA, Léon Marchand is working under the legendary Bob Bowman, Michael Phelps' former mentor, and is learning a lot from him. "I was very impressed at first. But he's a really great coach, with a lot of experience. I know I'll be ready for any competition with him. And he's really relaxed. He's had a lot of results, so he's cooler. We have a lot of fun training while knowing where we're going, what we want to do. There's a connection that's been created between us."
Léon Marchand won the gold medal in the 400m medley in his first race at the Paris Olympics in July 2024. The Frenchman left no chance for his opponents, finishing several seconds ahead in a race that turned into a demonstration, setting an Olympic record to boot. The Toulouse swimmer then went on to win the 200m butterfly after an epic duel with Milak before making history by winning a third title in the 200m breaststroke. The legend of Marchand didn't stop there, winning a fourth title in the 200m medley and then helping the 4x100m medley relay team to the bronze medal alongside Yohann Ndoye Brouard (backstroke), Maxime Grousset (butterfly), and Florent Manaudou (freestyle).
L'Internaute
