The reign of “King Léon” began in Paris, and its second chapter unfolded in Singapore. One year after winning four gold medals at the Olympic Games, Léon Marchand secured his second world title of the week on the final day of the World Swimming Championships in Singapore on Sunday, August 3, by dominating the 400m individual medley final. At 23 years old, the Frenchman has become a seven-time world champion in long course individual events, in just three editions of the World Championships.
The day didn’t start particularly smoothly: In the morning, during the qualifying heats, Marchand, “struggling a bit,” finished seventh, just barely making it into the final. Even though he said he had slept well, his legs felt heavy and his body was still stiff. That was one of the lessons taught by the Singapore World Championships: Many of the French swimmers are not really morning people.
In the evening, when the finals took place and the French fans were finally awake and watching the heats from home, everything fell back into place. Marchand, isolated in lane one, far from the center, swam the distance without worrying about the others and dominated the final in 4 minutes 4.73 seconds, well ahead of Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsushita (second, 4 min 8.32 s) and Russia’s Ilia Borodin (third, 4 min 9.16 s). His world record was out of reach on Sunday, but Marchand had broken the 200m individual medley world record earlier in the week. That achievement alone was more than enough to make his performance in the World Championships a success.
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