#Paris2024 | 🤯 4 courses. 4 médailles d'or. 4 records olympiques.
🇫🇷🥇 Léon Marchand devient le premier Français quadruple champion olympique lors d'une même édition : IL ENTRE DANS L'HISTOIRE ! pic.twitter.com/96yppyVmfM
— francetvsport (@francetvsport) August 2, 2024
21:53 – The fourth Marseillaise
Léon Marchand will have sung it more than any other athlete since the start of these 2024 Olympic Games. With these four victories, Léon Marchand is finally fully enjoying it because he has finished his individual marathon of four gold medals.
21:31 – Marchand 9th in the medal standings
If Leon Marchand were a country, he would simply be in 9th place in the medal standings. This adds a little more to the immense feat achieved by the French swimmer in these 2024 Olympics.
THERE ARE NO MORE WORDS! Leon Marchand wins a fourth title in these 2024 Olympics after winning the final in the 200m medley. OLYMPIC RECORD!!
20:45 – The return of the king!
Léon Marchand is coming forward! He will dive back into the pool at the Défense Arena to try to win a fourth gold medal in these 2024 Olympics.
20:18 – The evening session will begin with Léon Marchand
We are slowly arriving at a new great moment for Léon Marchand. The French swimmer will try to win a fourth gold medal in these 2024 Olympics with the final of the 200m individual medley which will start in about half an hour.
19:41 – A golden fourth in an hour ?
H-1 before Léon Marchand enters his garden at the Défense Arena. The Frenchman, a true hero of these 2024 Olympic Games, will try to win a fourth gold medal in these Olympic Games.
17:35 – Léon Marchand is ready
On X, the French swimmer turned up the heat with a tweet that just announced the time of the 200m individual medley final where he will try to win his 4th gold medal of the 2024 Olympics.
20h45 ⏳ pic.twitter.com/Qym7ncpo92
— Léon (@leon_marchand) August 2, 2024
Léon Marchand won the gold medal in the 400m medley for his first race at the Paris Olympics. The Frenchman left no chance to his opponents by finishing several seconds ahead at the end of a race that turned into a demonstration, an Olympic record to boot. The swimmer from Toulouse then followed up with a title in the 200m butterfly after an epic duel against Milak before making history by winning a third title in the 200m breaststroke. The Marchand legend didn't stop there with a 4th title in the 200m medley. Here's the rest of the program and all the practical information to learn about his incredible Olympic challenge.
His full program:
4x100m medley relay: heats on August 3rd from 11am, final on August 4th from 7:06pm
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.”