With ifs, we would put the Paris Games in a bottle and rank Léon Marchand among the grands crus. The road is still long before seeing on the roof of Olympus the Toulousain, whose bib bears the label “future Olympic champion”, in one of the queen disciplines of the planetary high mass. But one year before the meeting of which he could be one of the heroes, the French swimmer won, at 21, gold in the 400m medley, Sunday July 23, at the Worlds in Fukuoka (Japan), by pulverizing the record of the American legend Michael Phelps, which went back to the Beijing Games in 2008 (4 min 02 s 50, against 4 min 03 s 84 for the former Baltimore swimmer).
Read also: World swimming championships: Léon Marchand wins gold in the 400m medley and erases Michael Phelps’ world record
The beautiful story began on the banks of the Garonne, but it is on the banks of the Danube that it spreads out in the eyes of the whole world. In June 2022, a 20-year-old twig in a swimsuit splashes its talent at the Duna Arena in Budapest. Blue gaze in the pool, contagious smile under youthful cheekbones, Léon Marchand leaves the Hungarian Worlds with three medals around his neck: gold in the 400 meter medley and 200 meter medley, silver in the 200 meter butterfly. Since then, the shoulders have thickened, the status too.
Léon Marchand was not always the strongest nor the one who attracted everyone’s attention. On the contrary, “until he was 13-14 years old, he was a little smaller and thinner compared to boys his age, and rather discreet and reserved”remembers Nicolas Castel, who was first his sports educator, then his trainer at the Dauphins du TOEC, a secular institution in the Ville Rose.
Léon Marchand prepares for his semi-final of the 200 meter medley of the world championships in Budapest (Hungary), June 21, 2022. ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP
At the entrance to the Alfred-Nakache swimming pool, on the Ile du Ramier, where the Stadium stands, the lair of Toulouse FC, a photo immortalizes another member of the Marchand family, spreading his butterfly wings. Xavier, the father, was vice-champion of Europe (1997) and vice-world champion (1998), finalist at the Olympic Games in Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000) in the 200 meter medley. Léon fell into the chlorinated pot from the cradle, or almost. His mother, Céline Bonnet, a medley and backstroke specialist, took part in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. Uncle Christophe, Xavier’s brother, also scoured the pools.
Conquering the American West
At 3 years old, the heir took his first steps in the green and white club. “There, it was not very conclusive”, euphemised Xavier Marchand. Little Léon is cold and, above all, he is bored. He traded the bathing cap for a judogi then a rugby ball, without much conviction, before going back to the swimming pool, at the age of 7. For a long time, he swam without a wetsuit, for lack of finding one in his size, but the second attempt will soon be transformed.
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