When Michael Phelps rose from his seat, he did so because he was impressed.
For the pool’s golden god, who in his career swam far over one million laps in pursuit of his 28 Olympic medals, few things in the sport of swimming come as a surprise. Here was an exception.
Phelps applauded vigorously. “I cannot get over that,” he said. “What a race.”
Phelps was observing from the broadcast booth, where he was working as an announcer for the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, in Japan. A 21-year-old French swimmer, Léon Marchand, had just stormed home to win a gold medal in the 400-meter individual medley, one of Phelps’s signature events and perhaps the most physically taxing in the sport. Marchand did it in 4:02.50, a time that shattered Phelps’s longest-standing—and last remaining—world record.
Remarkable as Marchand’s time was, those who had been following his swimming career already knew that Phelps’s world record was in danger. Rowdy Gaines, the former American Olympian and current NBC swimming analyst, has said that he’s “never seen anybody else” reach the heights that Marchand has over the last few years—which include five world-championship gold medals and four current collegiate swimming records.
Most agree that, barring a significant physical ailment or a political uprising that buries Saint-Denis in rubble, at this summer’s Paris Olympics—which begin Friday—the now 22-year-old Marchand will be crowned the sport’s new king. (Phelps and Marchand declined to comment for this story.)
The Race to the Top
The way that Marchand swims, and the methods by which he practices, can be compared only to the athlete who praised him that Sunday night in Fukuoka, Michael Phelps.
Marchand’s renown—and his kinship with Phelps—was kindled in the fall of 2021, soon after he touched down in Tempe to swim and study at Arizona State University. Although Marchand had competed at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo just months before matriculating, his new training partners knew little about him.
“Our coaches would always tell us how good this French kid is,” says Sam Parker, who swam with Marchand at A.S.U. from 2020 through 2022. “They were building him up to be, literally, another Michael Phelps. We were kind of like, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’” Yet Marchand “showed up on campus and blew away everyone’s expectations,” says Parker—“including the coaches’.”
“As soon as he stepped foot on campus and started swimming,” recalls James Don, another of Marchand’s former A.S.U. teammates, “I was like, ‘Damn. This guy is no joke.’”
In a sport where the best athletes are typically also the hardest-working in practice, Parker and Don say that Marchand, like Phelps, is a disciplined, receptive, and tireless trainer.
At a lean six foot two, Marchand does not cut quite the imposing figure of the six-foot-four, 200-pound Phelps, but, says Don, “when I look at his body, he’s literally made for swimming. He’s got that long torso—like [Phelps] did—short legs, and then his hands are huge.”
“He just rides so well in the water. He’s like an easy rider,” says Gregg Parini, who has coached Denison University’s swim team for 37 seasons and visited A.S.U. last December to observe their team’s training. “It’s really beautiful to watch.”
Marchand’s recovery ability is also remarkable. He wears a fitness-tracking wristwatch that measures stats such as resting heart rate and sleep metrics, and his numbers, in Don’s view, are “not human.”
“As I watched Marchand train, I kept thinking about Secretariat,” Parini says. “When Secretariat passed away, they did an autopsy on him, and they found his heart was twice as large as a normal horse. I kept thinking, Marchand’s probably got a heart—an engine—that’s twice as big as anybody else out there, to be able to do this.”
The “this” that Parini refers to is, specifically, Marchand’s visually staggering ability to swim below the surface (called a swimmer’s “underwaters”). In the sport, swimmers push off each wall and are allowed to kick underneath the surface up to the 15-meter mark of each lap. Needing oxygen, elite swimmers often do not reach this limit—even once—in a race. Marchand, on the other hand, reaches it almost every lap, in races and in practice.
An ability to kick long distances underwater was a signature of Phelps’s. Another was his versatility, a trait shared by Marchand, who can swim, and win, in every stroke, at almost every distance.
“I’ve never seen anyone with this kind of versatility,” says Matt Fallon, the American record holder in the 200-meter breaststroke and the swimmer who will represent the United States in that event come the Paris Olympics.
“He can do everything—he has no weak stroke.”
“Marchand’s probably got a heart—an engine—that’s twice as big as anybody else out there, to be able to do this.”
Swimming is in Marchand’s blood. His mother, Céline Bonnet, competed for France at the 1992 Summer Olympics. His father, Xavier Marchand, swam for France four years later, at the 1996 Summer Olympics, and again in 2000. Both specialized in the 200-meter individual medley, the same event that Phelps would win at four consecutive Olympics, beginning in 2004. This year, Léon Marchand is the favorite to win the event.
Marchand was born in 2002 and raised in Toulouse, in southern France. Phelps has said he “hated the water” as a child; Marchand felt similarly and took matters into his own hands by quitting swimming altogether at age seven. Cold pools, as he has succinctly put it, were “awful.” In the years that followed, he tried other sports—his parents did not push him toward the water—and it wasn’t until 2011, at nine years old, that Marchand began racing regularly.
His flowering ability came to light after he broke a French national record in the 400-meter individual medley at 16 years old. This performance propelled him through a year of international competition, leading to the French National Championships—France’s qualifying meet for the Olympic Games—in 2021. There, an 18-year-old Marchand cleanly won each of his three events and lowered his 400-meter-individual-medley national record even further. The Tokyo Summer Olympics, and then college, followed.
Bob Bowman, A.S.U.’s head coach, was the guiding force that nurtured Phelps for his entire swimming life. From ages 11 to 31, through four Olympics—and amid a D.U.I., an infamous photo of him smoking marijuana, a retirement, and a comeback—Phelps prevailed under Bowman’s watch.
Then, in the spring of 2020, Bowman received an e-mail from someone named Léon Marchand, who expressed interest in swimming for A.S.U. Bowman recognized the last name. Could this swimmer be related to that older Marchand—Xavier? “I looked it up to see if this was his son, and it was,” Bowman tells me. “So I responded, ‘Yeah. We’d be interested in seeing what we can do for you.’”
Four years on, Bowman will coach for France at this year’s Olympics, in order to have better access to Marchand.
“He can do everything—he has no weak stroke.”
There remains a core difference between Phelps and Marchand, one that everyone I spoke to about him made abundantly clear. Unlike Phelps, who as a swimmer was known for his intensity, Marchand takes a more meditative approach.
“Calm is the perfect way to put how he approaches swimming,” says Sam Parker. “I mean, he really doesn’t talk about swimming outside of the pool very much. I don’t think he likes to. He’ll be the last person at the table to bring up swimming if we’re going to get dinner or something.”
At high-pressure swim meets, “you’ll see these athletes, and when they walk out you can see they’re nervous.... They’ll have a serious face, focused and everything,” adds James Don. “But when you see Léon, he’s smiling, waving to the crowd. He’s at his own pace, in a way. I think that’s what’s really special about him.”
“He just looks like a happy guy,” says Gregg Parini. “He looks like a kid in a candy shop every single day.”
Compartmentalization seems to be a key component of Marchand’s success. In his freshman year of college, Don says that Marchand held a 4.0 G.P.A. as a computer-science major. In his spare time, Marchand acquired pilot’s and boating licenses. “This kid can do anything, honestly,” he says.
At the Paris Olympics, Marchand will likely swim the 200- and 400-meter individual medleys, the 200-meter breaststroke, and the 200-meter butterfly. He will likely break world records and take home golds in a flourish in front of a home crowd. But when asked if Marchand had brought up the Olympics at all—the two were roommates this past college semester—Don says that Marchand mentioned it only briefly.
“He’s just a normal kid,” Bowman says. “And he loves to swim.”
Jack Sullivan is an Associate Editor at AIR MAIL
