Paris Olympics, Day 2 Finals: Leon Marchand Delights Crowd with 4:02.95 Show for 400 IM Gold

Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Paris Olympics, Day 2 Finals: Leon Marchand Delights Crowd with 4:02.95, Gold

The line outside the Paris La Defense Arena snaked more than a half kilometer Sunday night. Tickets for finals sessions this week are fetching upwards of €400 online. The chants of “LE-ON” began a half hour before the finals session opened, interrupted only by a crowd rendition of La Marseillaise.

It was less a swim meet than a party Sunday night.

Fitting, since the guest of honor had less a race than a coronation.

Leon Marchand didn’t disappoint the ecstatic home fans, chasing the world record to within less than a half second to win his first career gold medal, in 4:02.95. He took down Michael Phelps’ Olympic record by nearly a second and had long since swam away from the field, with the only remaining question if his own world record would survive.

World Record: Leon Marchand, FRA – 4:02.50 (2023)
Olympic Record: Michael Phelps, USA – 4:03.84 (2016)
Tokyo Olympic Champion: Chase Kalisz, USA – 4:09.42

It’s the first French gold medal for a male swimmer since 2012, when Florent Manaudou won the 50 freestyle, Yannick Angel took the 200 free and the French won the 400 free relay. It’s just the ninth gold medal in French program history.

“I had goosebumps on the podium,” Marchand said. “I felt really proud to be myself and to be also French tonight. It was an amazing time for me and I was really living in the moment.”

Tomoyuki Matsushita of Japan took home silver in 4:08.62, just .04 ahead of Carson Foster, who picked up his first Olympic medal in bronze.

Since the Tokyo Games in 2021, Marchand has achieved so much that it boggles the mind for Sunday to be his first Olympic medal. His first foray onto the Olympic stage at age 19 was in the 400 individual medley, where he finished sixth with a national record of 4:09.65. It is in the Marchand canon what Phelps’ Sydney swim in the 200 fly meant.

Three years and seven seconds later, there seems no limit to what Marchand can do. In that time, he’s twice won the world title in the 400 IM and twice in the 200 IM. Add eight individual NCAA titles, two relays, 12 national records, 11 U.S. Open records and now a gold medal.

Marchand’s press conference was delayed while he fielded a phone call from French president Emmanuel Macron, who was watching from home with his family.

“He told me he was watching the final with his whole family and everyone was kind of like screaming on the phone,” Marchand said. “It was kind of funny. I was very grateful for that call.”

In the pool, Marchand was right on his world record splits from Fukuoka early. He went out hard in Fukuoka, splitting 54.66, 1:01.98, 1:07.64 and 58.22. He was out quicker in 54.32 but gave it back in backstroke with a 1:02.44. A 1:07.48 was about holding serve, and then back in 58.71.

Marchand’s mentor and now French national team staff member Bob Bowman saw his prized pupil go through the day with characteristic calm, such that there was no relief necessary when Marchand stepped on the podium to hear the official version of La Marseillaise.

“He was in a very good mind frame before the race,” Bowman said. “He had taken a good nap in the afternoon, and I was very confident because he was just being himself. So he was good.”

He wasn’t the only one happy with the performance, no matter how much he’ll dominate the headlines. The silver medal is huge for Matsushita, who is just 18. It’s perhaps a passing of the torch from Daiya Seto, the 30-year-old who won bronze in this event eight years ago in Rio. Seto finished seventh, fading from third at the 300-meter mark.

“This is the sum of all my efforts,” Matsushita said. “It is because of all the help I got from friends and family. Everyone contributed to my medal today.”

The other medalists benefitted from the atmosphere in the La Defense Arena, too. Perhaps not to the degree of Marchand, but it’s indelibly marked upon them as well.

“It was pretty wild,” Foster said. “It sounded like a soccer stadium. It’s pretty cool. It’s so special for Leon to be able to do that in his home country. And that’s something I’ll be able to tell my kids about one day, hopefully. I swam next to Leon in his home country.”

It all keeps coming back to that one name, though. Sunday will forever be remembered as Marchand’s night. What Marchand did in absolute terms — broaching a world record, winning a gold in front of home fans, pushing the vanguard of the 400 IM ever faster — is amazing. But the fact that it was his goal for so long, that it seemed to be his destiny to get to this point and had to weather all the praise to get there, adds a layer, of setting a goal so lofty and then reaching it.

“I don’t think we had to talk a lot today,” Marchand said of his last interactions with Bowman before becoming an Olympic medalist. “We were both ready to do what we had to do. I think people were just trying to tell me to relax and stay happy. This is a pretty big chance for me to be at home at the Olympics, be in pretty good shape and just enjoying it.”

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