World Swimming Championships: Léon Marchand, a fabulous record while waiting for the medals

On July 31, 2024, on the road to his fabulous quadruple gold at the Paris Olympics, Léon Marchand wrote one of the greatest pages in the history of French sport by achieving the feat, less than two hours apart, of becoming Olympic champion in the 200m butterfly, then the 200m breaststroke. This July 30, 2025, the insatiable Toulousain has just added another page to his legend by literally atomizing a 14-year-old world record, namely that of the 200m medley . At only 23 years old, it should be remembered.

As Denis Auguin, the happy national technical director of the French Swimming Federation (FFN), aptly explained, "breaking a world record remains extremely rare, even if, with Léon, it tends to happen more often." But then, "massacring it," to use the DTN's words, by more than a second, is beyond superlative. Moreover, Nicolas Castel, Léon Marchand's ascendant Toulouse coach - alongside the...