The cheers for Leon Marchand thundered inside La Defense Arena on Sunday as he sat in the call room before the 400-meter individual medley, and then as he appeared in the pool area, as he was introduced in Lane 4, and then as he ascended the staring block, and, then, as he rocketed past seven other swimmers in the water with a ruthless, envious elegance.
The French cheering section sang La Marseillaise, their national anthem, before the finals session began and chanted Marchand’s name moments as he walked onto deck. Marchand played to the crowd, raising his hands high and waving.
Barely four minutes after he dived into the pool, Marchand climbed out, French flags waving all about. The son of two Olympic swimmers from France, Marchand, in his home Games, blistered the field to win his first — of many? — gold medal in Paris, his time of 4:02.95 setting an Olympic record.
It was only last summer that Marchand, 22, broke Michael Phelps’s last remaining world record, by more than a second, in the 400 individual medley. Since then, Marchand’s fame has soared.
He is the dominant male swimmer in the world, and though it would be indelicate to say that no one else in the pool on Sunday had a chance — well, let’s be indelicate. Marchand led after the first 50 meters, expanded his advantage in the backstroke, widened it in the breaststroke and then zoomed to the finish in the freestyle, finishing first by about six seconds — or as long as it took you to read this paragraph.
Marchand came. He saw. He swam. And did he ever win.
“It sounded like a soccer stadium,” said Carson Foster, the American swimmer who won bronze in the race. Foster added that swimming alongside Marchand while he did that in his home country would be memorable for him, too.
When it was over, Marchand took a call from President Emmanuel Macron of France that lasted several minutes on the edge of the interview mixed zone. He stood in his Team France warmups while Macron told him he’d watched the race with his family.
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