Léon Marchand Wins France’s First Swimming Gold at Paris Olympics
When you’re a world-record holder, there are a lot of expectations. When you’re a world-record holder racing in your home country’s Olympics, those expectations expand exponentially.
The excitement began on the morning of July 28, when Léon Marchand recorded the fastest qualifying time in the 400-meter individual medley, where swimmers compete in all four strokes—butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. The crowd’s energy heightened later that evening during the final, as Marchand dived in and never looked back. The 22-year-old maintained the lead at every turn, widening the gap between himself and the other swimmers with each lap until, by the time he turned for the finish, he was a significant three body lengths ahead of the competition.
“I had goosebumps before and during the race too,” he said. “On the breaststroke section I could hear everyone just cheering for me. That was special and winning today was amazing for me.” Marchand’s time of 4:02.95 didn’t break his previous world record, but it was enough to set an Olympic record, previously held by Michael Phelps at the 2008 Olympics.
Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsushita secured silver, more than five seconds behind Marchand. “I knew already that Léon was very fast. He is the best,” Matsushita said.
Carson Foster of the United States won the bronze medal and was already putting his experience into perspective moments after leaving the pool. “It’s something that I’ll be able to tell my kids one day hopefully that I swam next to Léon in his home country at his home Olympics,” he said.
This marks Marchand’s second Olympics; the Toulouse native competed in Tokyo but didn’t win a medal. Swimming is in his blood: both of his parents were Olympic medley swimmers, the event that has become Marchand’s specialty as well. It’s also the event that Phelps dominated in the early 2000s.
Although Marchand has tried to downplay the similarities, he has a lot in common with the Olympic legend. Like Phelps, he was not a fan of the water as a young boy. Phelps has said that he disliked being underwater so much that he stuck to floating on his back. Marchand, on the other hand, has said he found the immersive experience both cold and boring. Marchand never considered following his famous parents to swim competitively and swam mainly for fun.
After he won his first French national championships at age 17, however, he became more serious about the sport and sought opportunities to swim competitively and on scholarship. He focused on programs in the U.S., which he saw as providing stronger and more numerous opportunities. It was 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which both helped and hindered his search. On the one hand, it made his endeavor slightly easier since everything was being done remotely and the distance (and ocean) separating him from his dream schools wasn’t as much of an issue. On the other, he could only meet and get to know his future coaches virtually.
Marchand sent a cold email to Bob Bowman, Phelps’ longtime coach, who headed the program at Arizona State University, asking for the chance to train with him. Bowman wasn’t familiar with the Frenchman but recognized the last name and researched Marchand’s times. He was immediately impressed and, Marchand told AFP, responded in 15 minutes expressing interest. Marchand began as a freshman the following year.
Bowman’s intuition proved accurate as he began transforming Marchand into a world-champion swimmer in the very events, the 200-meter and 400-meter individual medley, that his parents, as well as Phelps, competed in. In 2023, Marchand shattered Phelps’ longest-standing world record, which had remained unbroken for 15 years.
“I definitely dreamed of that before,” he said of his gold-medal race. “Doing this in my hometown is pretty cool.” It also meant a call from French President Emmanuel Macron, who phoned the swimming star to congratulate him and tell him his entire family was watching the race. “They were all screaming on the phone; it was kind of funny,” Marchand said.
The pressure of competing with the weight of a country’s expectations is a new experience for the introverted swimmer. He told Paris 2024 that he’s been working with a mental coach for two years and working on breathing techniques—inhaling and exhaling only through his nose, for example—to calm himself down and to sleep better.
“I was trying to focus on myself, but it’s really hard when 15,000 people are cheering for me,” he said.
Marchand wasn’t the only newsmaker at La Defense Arena. Gretchen Walsh, who set a world record in the 100-meter butterfly during the U.S. Olympic trials in June, was out-touched by her teammate Torri Huske, who slid in for a surprise gold in the event. The win was especially sweet for Huske, who narrowly missed the podium at the Tokyo Olympics by one one-hundredth of a second. “I’m not going to lie, that was devastating,” she said. “But it really fueled me and I think it did make me better.”
And American Nic Fink added another silver to the U.S. tally by tying Great Britain’s Adam Peaty in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke, behind Italian Nicolo Martinenghi who touched the wall first for gold.
But the evening belonged to Marchand mania. While the swimmer’s performance in Paris will only continue the inevitable comparisons to Phelps, his debut Olympic showing is evidence that he may be able to set his own standards after all. Marchand is expected to swim at least three more individual events—the 200-meter individual medley, the 200-meter breaststroke, and 200-meter butterfly—as well as relays later in the week.