Léon Marchand at the 2024 Olympics: after gold, what's on the agenda ? Here are the dates of his next races

Léon Marchand has started ideally his ogre program at the 2024 Olympics by winning the 400m medley after a demonstration. The French swimmer must follow up quickly with three other races. Plus a relay ?

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20:35 – An end of program with a relay in apotheosis ?

After the 200m breaststroke and butterfly, Léon Marchand will return to the 200m medley on Thursday during the heats. The final is scheduled for Friday evening. Will Léon Marchand have finished with his Olympic program ? Participation in the 4x100m medley relay scheduled for this weekend is possible. With Florent Manaudou in freestyle, Yoann Ndoye-Brouard in backstroke and also possibly Maxime Grousset in butterfly, the French relay could look good if the new Olympic champion lines up in the breaststroke.

17:10 – 10.8 million viewers for Marchand's victorious 400m medley

Leon Marchand's swim to gold in the 400m medley shook La Défense Arena and sent audience figures into a tailspin. The race, broadcast on France 2 at 8:30pm on Sunday evening, attracted 10.2 million viewers according to France Télévisions.

13:30 – Marchand favorite in the 200m medley ?

After his demonstration in the 400m medley, Léon Marchand approaches the rest of the program with legitimate ambition. If the challenge of the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke on the same day seems crazy, his registration in the 200m medley could earn him a new medal at the end of the week. Favorite, he will however have to face a big opposition with notably the Chinese Shun Wang but also Carson Foster, 3rd yesterday in the 400m.

11:30 – Marchand in the last series of the 200m breaststroke, less than two hours to recover ?

Scheduled in the last race of the 200m breaststroke heats, Léon Marchand will have a few more minutes to catch his breath, but the time between the end of his 200m butterfly heat and the start of the 200m breaststroke will still be tight: less than two hours! After the 200m butterfly scheduled for 11am, the Frenchman is scheduled in the last heat of the breaststroke, a race that should start at 12:51 for the first competitors in series no. 1. Marchand has been placed in series no. 4. He will notably meet the Chinese Haiyang Qin, 2023 world champion in the 50, 100 and 200m breaststroke but disappointing on Sunday evening in the 100m breaststroke where he took 7th place in the final. The reigning 2024 world champion, China's Zhihao Dong is also in this heat.

10:16 – Marchand in the final heat of the 200m butterfly on Tuesday

Léon Marchand's Olympic program will continue on Tuesday with the 200m butterfly heats to begin. The Frenchman has been placed in the 4th and final heat where he will meet the Polish Kristof Chmielewski, silver medalist behind Marchand at the last 2023 World Championships. The world record holder, the Hungarian Kristof Milak, and the American Thomas Heilman are placed in the 3rd heat. The start of these series is scheduled for 11am on Tuesday.

09:34 – Marchand dives back in on Tuesday, what's on the agenda for Monday ?

Rest day for L&eacuteon Marchand this Monday after his crazy Sunday evening marked by his first Olympic title. The French swimmer should follow the training concocted by his American coach Bob Bowman who is accompanying the French team during this fortnight. Michael Phelps' former coach must launch him towards a new challenge, the hardest of all: to chain the 200 meters butterfly and the 200 meters breaststroke on the same day! The series take place on Tuesday.

With a colossal lead built up throughout the first 300 metres in backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke, Léon Marchand made La Défense Arena tremble by brilliantly concluding his 400 metres medley in crawl. Relive the final meters of a race that went down in history.

09:20 – How Léon Marchand built his victory ? The superb modeling of the New York Times

The American media are also stunned this morning after Leon Marchand's victory in the 400m medley on Sunday, blown away by the gap created by the Frenchman over the course of the race. This modeling carried out by the New York Times helps to determine the scope of the exploit.

0~p>Léon Marchand won the the gold medal in the 400 meter medley for his first race at the Paris Olympics. The Frenchman didn'leté no chance &agrav; his opponents by finishing several seconds ahead at the end of a race that turned into a demonstration, with an Olympic record to boot. The swimmer from Toulouse will be back in the La Défense pool on Tuesday. Here is the rest of the program and all the practical information you need to know about his incredible Olympic challenge.

His full program:

• 200 m butterfly: heats on July 30 and 31 from 11 a.m., finals from 8:36 p.m.
• 200 m breaststroke: heats on July 30 and 31 from 11 a.m., finals from from 10:08 p.m.
• 200 m medley: heats on August 1 and 2 from 11 a.m., final from 8:49 p.m.
• 4×100 m relay: heats on August 9 from 11 a.m., final on August 10 from 7:12 p.m.

Léon Marchand was born on May 17, 2002 in Toulouse and is the son of two former swimmers: Xavier Marchand, silver medalist at the world championships in the 200m medley in 1998, and Céline Bonnet, backstroke swimmer and medley specialist, who notably participated in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. His uncle, Christophe, is also a former Olympic swimmer, now the sports director of a swimming pool in Clichy. The young “Léon” has obviously been swimming in pools since he was very young, even if he had a preference for judo and rugby before following in his parents' footsteps, going so far as to be crowned French champion in the 200m butterfly in Rennes in 2019, making him the first French swimmer to obtain such a title in 17 years old. A few months later, he won a bronze medal in the 400m medley and the 200m breaststroke at the 2019 European Junior Championships. At the World Swimming Championships in Budapest in 2022, he left with three medals to his name, including two gold.

Who are Léon Marchand's parents ?

Léon Marchand comes from a lineage of swimmers. His mother is simply Céline Bonnet, a backstroke specialist and several times French champion. His father, Xavier Marchand, is vice-world champion in the 200m medley in Perth, Australia, in 1998.

How tall is Léon Marchand ? 

The French swimmer, a specialist in the 400m medley, is a big guy in the world of swimming and measures 1.83m according to the latest data from the FFN.

Why did Léon Marchand go to Arizona ?

The day after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 where he took part in his first Olympic final, taking 6th place, Léon Marchand packed his bags to join the University Arizona State and a certain Bob Bowman, former mentor of a certain Michael Phelps. Since then, the young prodigy has continued to progress and impress the United States. He also made headlines in May 2022 when he broke the NCAA record for the 200-yard medley, previously held by Caeleb Dressel. A performance that was congratulated by… Michael Phelps on Instagram.

Beyond the results in the pool, Léon Marchand has simply evolved since his departure for the United States as he explained to 20 Minutes in June 2022. "In bodybuilding, I did more " weightlifting ", more explosiveness. I am much more powerful. Mentally, I have gained autonomy and a lot of experience because I swam a lot in the NCAA (the university championship in the United States). I did a lot of races, a lot of relays. In competition, I can now throw myself at the wall to win the race. I swam a lot with Bob (Bowman). I improved my backstroke, my crawl. I have more assets than before. I simply swim faster.”

Léon Marchand and Bob Bowman

Léon Marchand based in the USA is under the orders of the legendary Bob Bowman, former mentor of Michael Phelps, and is learning a lot from him. “I was very impressed at first. But he's really a great coach, with a lot of experience. I know I'll be ready for all the competitions with him. And he's really relaxed. He's had a lot of results, so he's cooler, we have a lot of fun training while knowing in which direction we're going, what we want to do. There's a connection that's been created between us.”