Leon Marchand narrows his World Swimming Championships focus with world record in sight

NBC Sports

6 days ago

Since the Paris Olympics, Léon Marchand has surfed in Australia and been asked for a picture while dining in Greece. Back in France, he estimated his fame is 10 times greater than anywhere else he's been.
Marchand, who won four swimming gold medals last summer, returned to his training base of Austin, Texas, in late March to prepare for the World Championships. The meet begins this weekend in Singapore (live daily on Peacock).
The 23-year-old from Toulouse initially entered the same four events he won in Paris: the 200m and 400m individual medleys, the 200m breaststroke and the 200m butterfly.
On Monday, French media reported that Marchand dropped the 200m breast and 200m fly, his two closest races in Paris (the two Olympic finals were about 1 hour, 45 minutes apart).
Nick Zaccardi,
'It's a choice we made because we are in a post-Olympic year, and he has never had the opportunity to present a 200m medley without having a race before or after the same day,' Marchand's France-based coach Nicolas Castel said in comments reported by France Info that Castel reposted on social media, according to a translation. 'He wanted to test this isolated 200m medley and see what he was capable of.'
The 200m fly final is the day before the 200m IM final. The 200m breast semis are in the same session as the 200m IM final. Dropping them would mean Marchand has no individual races before the 200m IM.
He could be capable of breaking the world record: 1:54.00, set by Ryan Lochte at the 2011 World Championships. In Paris, Marchand swam 1:54.06, missing the record by six hundredths of a second.
If he can take it down, Marchand will become the second man to own both individual medley world records in the last 30 years. The other: Michael Phelps, whose 400m IM record Marchand broke in 2023 after Phelps held it for 21 years.
'I have a lot of things to improve,' Marchand said in the spring, reflecting on the Paris Olympics as a whole. 'It's not over. I also did a lot of mistakes, so I can do better for sure.'
Marchand has said the four years of work leading into Paris were the hard part.
Swimming at his home Games, despite the pressure, was like spending the money he banked over thousands of training hours, to take a metaphor that his Austin-based coach, Bob Bowman, adopted in his years guiding Phelps.
So, how much has Marchand deposited since Paris that he can withdraw in Singapore? Bowman said he's been swimming near his top level in practice.
'I'm very happy with how he's been since he's come back,' Bowman said. 'He's been perfectly normal. He's tried hard. He's made the improvements.'
Marchand took six weeks of vacation after the Olympics, according to L'Equipe. Then on Nov. 1, he broke Lochte's 200m IM world record for 25-meter short course pools, which are used less frequently than the 50-meter pools at most major meets like the Olympics.
He swam and surfed in Australia over three months early this year (during which he cracked a rib, missing a week) before settling back down in Austin.
Marchand has yet to swim at a high-stakes meet in 2025, unlike Americans who had to qualify through trials. So there is little race data to gauge how close he is to summer 2024 form.
'I think that his year has unfolded — other than the injuries — it's kind of been what he wanted,' Bowman said. 'I think he needed a mental break. I think he needed to go away to Australia to get out of France for a while. And then when he was ready to come back, he's done very well in Texas.'