Marchand drops 200 butterfly, breaststroke for world championships
The 23-year-old Frenchman won gold in the 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, 200 and 400 IM at the Paris Games, as well as a bronze in 4x100m medley.
"He won't be doing the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke," Castel told Franceinfo on Monday.
"It's a choice we made because we're in a post-Olympic year and he's never had the opportunity to do a 200m medley without having a race before or after it on the same day. He wanted to test this isolated 200m medley and see what he was capable of."
The swimming events at the world championships will take place in Singapore from July 27 to August 3.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
29 minutes ago
- Scottish Sun
The Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games mascot revealed – with hilarious nod to unofficial city landmark
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THE Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games look set to be magical - after the official mascot was revealed to be a unicorn. Finnie - short for the Finnieston area of the city - was unveiled yesterday after 76 children from 24 local schools dreamed up the 'hooved-hypemaster.' Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 4 The new Commonwealth Games mascot Finnie was unveiled at Kelvingrove Art Galleries. Credit: Alan MacGregor Ewing 4 The horn pays homage to the Duke of Wellington statue. Credit: Alan MacGregor Ewing 4 Finnie took part in a race against runner Eilish McColgan. Credit: Alan MacGregor Ewing 4 The mascot was even thrown by judoka Sarah Adlington. Credit: Alan MacGregor Ewing Her signature feature is a horn inspired by the famous traffic cone on top of the Duke of Wellington statue outside the Gallery of Modern of Art. Athletes including Commonwealth 10,000m champion Eilish McColgan and Olympic medallist and Glasgow 2014 Team Scotland flagbearer Eilidh Doyle joined excited kids at Kelvingrove for the big launch. Maskeen Bhullar, 11, who attends St Patrick's Primary School in Anderston, said: "It has been an extraordinary experience being part of the Mascot Maker team for the 2026 Commonwealth Games. "The last time the Commonwealth Games were held in Glasgow I was one year old. I want to be an athlete one day and take part in a future Commonwealth Games. "Being involved in creating the mascot has inspired me even more to work towards that dream. To me, the mascot represents my city, Glasgow, and stands as a symbol of the 2026 Commonwealth Games. It's something I'll always feel proud to have contributed to.' While Aaron Higgins, 17, from Bailleston, is taking part in the Transplant Games next week and said it was an honour to be part of the team that created Finnie. The athlete also revealed that a unicorn wasn't the only animal considered when they first looked at the mascot. He said: "My friend John came up with an idea of raccoon at first and then a ferret. "My other friend said a fish because they thought of the River Clyde. "We came up with a design similar to Finnie and we couldn't have imagined it would have worked out so well now that she's been unveiled. Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games: did they leave a lasting legacy? Team Scotland basketball player Kieron Achara, Judoka medallist Sarah Adlington and Commonwealth Para Bowls gold medallist Pauline Wilson were also in attendance at the launch. While Finnie even met Scotland's First Minister John Swinney and Glasgow's Lord Provost Jaqueline McLaren, alongside the Mascot Makers. In a statement, Finnie said: 'I'll be at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games next summer with a grin, a wave, maybe even a wee dance. "I'm here to turn the nerves into excitement, stir the cheers and help turn every moment into something magic as Glasgow 2026 swings into the city.' The Mascot Makers took part in a creative workshop at Glasgow City Chamber - teaming with creative agency 999 Design, Scottish actor Libby McArthur and Impact Arts. The Games, which will take place from July 23 to August 2 next year, are expected to welcome more than 3,000 athletes from 74 nations and territories.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Aside from a sense of manifest destiny, what exactly is Wiegman-ball?
'This is a movie,' Sarina Wiegman said, and as England celebrated their heist in Geneva that sense of unreality seemed to have infused her players too. 'Goodness me,' sighed Esme Morgan as she returned to the dressing room after the 2-1 extra-time win over Italy, blowing out her cheeks in relief. Meanwhile, the captain, Leah Williamson, was trying to explain just how England manage to keep going behind but pulling out victories at the very end. 'Whilst there are seconds on the clock, there are seconds that we're just waiting,' she said. 'It's less 'if' and more 'how'. I don't know how to explain it, I don't know how we do it.' And frankly, this was the sort of victory that defied rational explanation. By the dying minutes of this game Beth Mead was playing in central midfield as part of a double pivot behind Ella Toone and the strike duo of Michelle Agyemang and Aggie Beever-Jones. Lauren Hemp, who started the last World Cup final as a second striker, was now left-back. And England were basically just pumping long balls into the area hoping something would happen. The formation: like, 2-6-2? 3-2-1-4? In a way, it scarcely mattered. This is after all tournament football, where the usual logic does not always apply, where the result is the result, however you get it. The new plan is no plan. Just go at it. 'Everybody's fighting and everybody wants to win and everybody feels like they can win,' Lucy Bronze said afterwards and frankly her stirring performances in this tournament suggest that ultimately it may be no more complicated than that. For Wiegman, however, all this represents a certain tectonic shift. When she arrived as England coach in 2021 she was presented not simply as a great leader but a sharp tactician, a coach raised in the Cruyff persuasion, who met the great man at the age of 13 on a television show, who had absorbed his principles of dynamic possession and won Euro 2017 with the Netherlands playing the classic Dutch 4-3-3. Who above all had a philosophy, a defined style of playing. These days, that style is a little harder to discern. England have switched freely between a back four and a back three, often in the same tournament, sometimes even in the same half. Passing principles have been blooded, adopted and then junked in the face of trouble. So what exactly is the philosophy? Four years into the reign of the most successful coach in the history of English women's football, what exactly is Wiegman-ball? And how is it possible that days before a European Championship final, we don't even know the answer? Wiegman may be a coach of the Dutch school, but perhaps her formative experience as a footballer was playing at a Fifa invitational tournament in China in 1988. There she met the US national team coach Anson Dorrance, who was impressed with the young defensive midfielder and invited her to train at the University of North Carolina the following year. That year with the Tar Heels opened a world of possibility. 'It was a soccer paradise,' she later said. She worked with Dorrance, played with all-time greats such as Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly, trained at world-class facilities, returned to the Netherlands with a creed that would shape her. Creating success in women's football was not purely a theoretical exercise. It was about building a culture, being professional, showing ambition, exhibiting an elite mentality. Whatever it takes, you do it. Perhaps in retrospect this helps to explain why so many of Wiegman's triumphs with England have felt vaguely American in character: that sense of manifest destiny, the superior physicality, a cold confidence in getting the job done, a belief above all that trophies are won through sheer force of will. It is by now no coincidence that England have compiled a litany of major tournament wins undeserved on the simple run of play. Spain in 2022. Colombia and Nigeria in 2023. Sweden and now Italy in 2025: victory as an extension of identity. And of course the fumble by Laura Giuliani for Agyemang's opening goal and the crucial late miss by Emma Severini and the extra-time foul by the same player are not mistakes that happen in a vacuum, but mistakes induced by pressure. Perhaps Wiegman's greatest achievement is to build a culture in which England's players can navigate their own way through adversity, never get disheartened, never relinquish their desire to take the thing they do not deserve. This is what sees you through the tough moments, against more limited and tiring opponents. England's ability to produce a swell of pressure in the closing minutes remains unparalleled. It may well be the closest thing England have to an actual ideology, the 'proper England' of which so many in the camp have spoken. 'You can never write the English off,' Kelly said afterwards. 'I don't think you'll find a team in world football with more fight and more resilience,' Bronze said. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion The fact that this can be read as deeply disrespectful to the beaten Italians – what, did they simply not fight as hard? – is beside the point. Wiegman's focus on culture – the underrated skill of binding 23 players for a month – is what gets England through the big moments. England do not lie down. England stay united right until the end. Then some things happen, and it's best not trying to analyse those too much. There are of course similarities here with the other great England coach of this era. Gareth Southgate was also a culture guy rather than a tactics guy, a healer rather than a technician, a man whose gift – and it really was a gift – was not to micro-manage or theorise but simply to create the right environment for gifted athletes to thrive for four weeks. To make the chore of international football feel fun. To find the right emotional blend. What is Southgate's tactical identity? Beyond a weird predilection for playing right-footers at left-back, it's hard to pin down. The caveat is that while this is a reliable way of progressing in tournaments, it is an extremely unreliable way of winning tournaments. Teams that are tactically inchoate but blessed with gifted individuals and an unshakeable mentality can win big pots in the absence of a genuinely great alternative. We think of the USA in 2019, Portugal in the men's European Championship of 2016, arguably England in 2022. Meanwhile England's habit of grimacing their way through knockout football almost won them the biggest prize of all in 2023, only for Spain to outclass them in the final. It's instructive revisiting the post-mortem of that match, a spirited and honourable defeat, and yet one in which pretty much nobody in England gear was capable of explaining. But hang on. If victories are all about fight and resilience and spirit and never giving up, then do defeats mean you didn't try hard enough? That you didn't want it enough? That you gave up? Of course not. 'If we put the ball in the back of the net, it's game on,' said Millie Bright. Georgia Stanway thought England were 'unlucky'. Wiegman, having watched Mary Earps save Jenni Hermoso's penalty in the 70th minute, was convinced that the momentum of the game would inevitably lead to a goal. 'Now we are going to get to 1-1,' she said afterwards. 'But we didn't.' Perhaps it was no surprise that, as England shuffle towards their next final, nobody really seems to be able to put their finger on why they lost the last. Doing so, of course, would involve acknowledging England's technical inferiority, their inability to take and recycle the ball under pressure, the lack of sophisticated passers being produced by the English game, the basic absence of process. Better by far to file it away as a twist of fate, bad luck, a random bounce of the ball, just something that happens. And if true, then England – one of the best-resourced and most talented squads in world football – have a puncher's chance of lifting the trophy on Sunday night. Perhaps ultimately this is all they want, all they ever required. The TV ratings will be good either way. Perhaps Wiegman's description of England's Euro 2025 as a movie was more apposite than she realised. After all, when you're watching a movie, you're not really involved. You're just sitting there, waiting for the plot to unfold in front of you.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Man United frustrated in forward search with rivals landing key targets - as hierarchy accept Ruben Amorim may start the season without a new striker
Manchester United are in danger of starting the season without a new striker as they struggle to compete with their Premier League rivals. On the day that Marcus Rashford left Old Trafford on loan to Barcelona, it emerged that the United hierarchy accept Ruben Amorim 's side could kick off the new campaign against Arsenal next month without a new signing to lead the attack. United have spent more than £130million this summer on Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, but they are expected to play as the two No.10s in Amorim's 3-4-2-1 system. The Portuguese coach also wants a new striker with Premier League experience, but United missed out on top target Liam Delap when he chose to join Chelsea instead, while Viktor Gyokeres and Hugo Ekitike are headed for Arsenal and Liverpool respectively. United are trying to raise money by selling players and have been linked with a range of strikers from Paris St Germain's Randal Kolo Muani, Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa and RB Leipzig front man Benjamin Sesko to free agents such as Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Another option would be a swap deal with Chelsea involving Alejandro Garnacho and Nicolas Jackson. Amorim will have been relieved to secure Mbeumo's signing just in time for United's pre-season tour to the US, even though the move earned neighbours Manchester City £6.5m due to a 10 per cent sell-on clause in the Cameroonian's transfer from Troyes – owned by the City Football Group – to Brentford in 2019.
