Léon The Great: Marchand accomplishes a feat that was downright Phelps-like

NANTERRE, France -- If there's anyone who can appreciate the magnitude of what Léon Marchand has done at the Paris Olympics, it's Bob Bowman.

The longtime coach was on deck for Michael Phelps' entire career, which gave him a front-row seat for improbable feats such as breaking world records in two different events about an hour apart and winning eight gold medals at a single Summer Games.

It's too soon to call Marchand another Phelps — after all, the Frenchman still trails the most decorated Olympian ever in the gold medal table 23-3. But it's hardly a stretch to say Marchand's performance at La Defense Arena was downright Phelps-like.

In the space of about two hours Wednesday night, Marchand won gold medals using two very different strokes, both times with the defending champion from the Tokyo Games in the lane next to him.

“I’m so very proud of him,” Bowman said of his latest star pupil. “That’s a tremendous, historic effort. It just shows the incredible work that he’s done for many years to get here.”

With the same sort of precision that Bowman use to chart out for Phelps, Marchand rallied on the final lap to beat world-record holder and 2021 gold medalist Kristóf Milák in the 200-meter butterfly with an Olympic-record time, hustled to the practice pool for a warm down, returned to the deck for the medal ceremony, disappeared again to begin prepping for his next race, then blew away the field — including defending champ Zac Stubblety-Cook — to claim gold in the 200 breaststroke while setting another Olympic record..

Whew!

Marchand has been unflappable under intense pressure

“The way he handled it, his attitude about it, was amazing," Bowman said. "The way that he moved through the different parts of it and how to do it were just exactly right. There hasn’t been a part yet that seems that tough.”

The 22-year-old Marchand started his Olympics with a flourish, swimming away from everyone in the 400 individual medley on Sunday.

Yet, it was the audacious double that assured he will go down as one of the faces of these games, especially when it was accompanied by a rollicking home crowd of more than 15,000, who held up cardboard cutouts of his smiling face, adorned themselves in the tricolore and nearly blew the roof off the place with each rendition of “La Marseillaise.”

“It’s not easy because you want to enjoy the 15,000 fans that are here to see you," Marchand said. “But I still enjoyed it without losing too much energy or focusing too much on my emotions.”

Other Olympic champions are impressed by Marchand's performance

Everyone else seemed to grasp that they were just bit players in The Marchand Show.

“It was awesome, watching him walk out," Stubblety-Cook marveled. “I think it was the most exciting part of that whole race, watching him soak it all up and have his moment.”

Comparing Marchand's performance to great moments by Phelps

Bowman watched Phelps do some amazing things.

Swimming afficionados still marvel over the 2003 world championships in Barcelona, where an 18-year-old Phelps set a world record in the semifinals of the 100 butterfly and returned about an hour later to set another world record to win the 200 individual medley.

Then, of course, everyone remembers the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, where Phelps — swimming day after day after day, including several doubles — pulled off the inside straight of eight gold medals in eight events, taking down Mark Spitz's iconic Olympic record.

How does Marchand's feat compare to those?

“It's up there,” Bowman said.

A child of swimmers, Marchand has been preparing for this for years

The son of French medley swimmers Xavier Marchand and Céline Bonnet, Léon didn't appear overwhelmed in the least by his stunning performance.

He's been building to this moment for several years now, providing the first real glimpse of what was possible at the 2022 worlds championships in Budapest, where he swept the individual medleys and grabbed silver in the 200 butterfly.

Moving to the United States to attend Arizona State University and train under Bowman only accelerated the comparisons to Phelps. That might have overwhelmed some swimmers, but it only seems to have spurred Marchand to greater heights.

“I really enjoyed every moment of those two finals,” Marchand said. “It was really amazing for me to swim. Those were really good opponents, too."

What's next for Marchand?

He isn't finished yet.

Marchand returned to the pool about 12 hours later for the preliminaries of the 200 IM on Thursday, an event that now seems like a lock for his fourth gold medal. He posted the third-fastest qualifying time to breeze into the evening semifinals.

“My body is hurting a lot right now,” he said. “It’s fine, because I’m trained for that.”

Marchand is also expected to swim on at least one relay, though his medal chances are much slimmer because France doesn't have the depth of powerhouse nations such as the United States and Australia.

Will Marchand be a celebrity beyond the pool?

Still to come is the victory tour.

Bowman watched Phelps become a worldwide phenomenon, doing everything from hosting "Saturday Night Live" to becoming a favorite name to drop in rap lyrics.

Marchand has yet to fully grasp what awaits him away from the pool. How he handles all that attention will largely determine where his career goes from here, amid speculation that his best is yet to come at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“The key thing for him, which sadly I know about, he doesn’t know about yet,” Bowman said. “He’s got to come out of what’s next and he has no idea. But I know exactly what’s next and then somehow, he has to find his way back to a pool in Austin, Texas (where Bowman now coaches) and start going up and down.”

No matter what happens over the rest of a still-burgeoning career, Bowman will encourage Marchand to cling to the memories of what he accomplished on one magical night in the western suburbs of Paris.

“I just hope," the coach said, “he remembers everything about it.”

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games