It’s not the butterfly effect but the effect of the butterfly king. More than four months after the Olympic Games, “the tsunami is easing a little, but as soon as he moves a muscle, it starts up again.” Michel Coloma is well-placed to confirm the frenzy around Lรฉon Marchand, the four-time gold medalist at the Paris 2024 Games (400m medley, 200m butterfly, 200m breaststroke, 200m medley). The director general of the TOEC Dolphins, the Toulouse swimmer’s home club, is politely wading through the waves of appearance and sponsorship requests that have poured in since the swimmer’s phenomenal summer performance.
“Recently, it was a request to sponsor a meditation organization, and everyone tells me, ‘But it’s only this.’ Yes, but it’s ‘only this’ 100 times a day.” Among the most outlandish requests, some imagined the king of swimming gracing a cassoulet festival or handing out a trophy at a pรฉtanque tournament. “We filter and filter and filter,” said Vincent Gardeau, the president of the club.
The world’s current best swimmer returned to the Toulouse pool, on the banks of the Garonne River, on September 16, 2024. Before crossing the Atlantic in January to join his US coach, Bob Bowman, he was initially scheduled to stop on the banks of the Danube from December 10 to 15 for the Short Course World Championships (25m) in Budapest. “Exhausted,” the 22-year-old swimmer eventually decided to give it a miss.
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