What Can Leon Marchand Do in His Long Course Return?
His performance less than three weeks ago at the NCAA Men’s Championships can only be described as one of the best in college swimming history. In Minneapolis, Leon Marchand annihilated the fastest yards times ever in the 200 IM, 400 IM and 200 breaststroke while also swimming the fastest split in history on three different relays.
Even with expectations already through the roof after electric swimming in Arizona State’s final dual meets of the season and at the Pac-12 Championships, Marchand’s swimming was simply surreal, particularly his 400 IM that smashed the existing national record by almost three seconds and beat a really strong field by half a pool length.
However, to much of the world, short course yards swimming is irrelevant and nonexistent. Indeed, Marchand had never raced in yards prior to his arrival in Tempe in August 2021. And make no mistake: short course swimming is a different beat than long course. Plenty of swimmers who starred on the college level make nary an impact in national-level long course competition while others struggle to score collegiately before achieving international success long course. Comparing the two formats is an inexact science, at best, and given his underwater abilities, Marchand is undoubtedly better suited to short course than some of his rivals.
But we can compare Marchand to himself, and a simple check of his 2023 times against his 2022 marks in yards shows massive improvement. A quick recap:
- 200 IM: 1:37.69 to 1:36.34
- 400 IM: 3:34.08 to 3:28.82
- 200 breast: 1:48.20 to 1:46.91
- 200 free (split): 1:29.96 to 1:28.42
By that measure, it seems like a near certainty that his long course times this year will be an improvement on his already-historic paces of 2022. Remember, he swam the second-fastest time in history in the 400-meter IM last year, his 4:04.28 just short of Michael Phelps’ 2008 world record of 4:03.84, before winning a second world title in the 200 IM. He jumped to sixth all-time in the 200 IM (1:55.22) and his silver-medal swim in the 200 butterfly (1:53.37) made him history’s eighth-fastest man.
It is a very real possibility — a probability? — that Marchand will knock the last individual Phelps world record from the books this year, and he could very well take aim at Ryan Lochte’s 200 IM world record (1:54.00) as well.
His long course season starts this week at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Westmont, Ill., and this is a swimmer who set an NCAA record in a dual meet just three months ago, so don’t discount the possibility of crazy swims as soon as Thursday evening. Last year, at Marchand’s first long course meet after the conclusion of the college season, the TYR Pro Swim Series in San Antonio, he made clear his intentions for a big summer by crushing his then-best times in the 200 breast (2:09.24) and 200 IM (1:56.95). He came in second in the 200 IM behind Shaine Casas, who would end up with 2022’s second-quickest mark in the event.
And at that meet in the 400 IM, Marchand crushed a field including Olympic silver medalist Jay Litherland by more than nine seconds, his time of 4:10.38 mere tenths shy of the time he swam to qualify for his first Olympic final eight months previously.
For this year’s meet in Westmont, Marchand is entered in both individual medley events along with the 200 breast and 200 fly, and he is set to have some stacked competition, at least for April standards. The 400 IM features Americans Carson Foster and Chase Kalisz, who joined him on the World Championships podium last year, while Casas is also entered in the 200 IM. The 200 fly includes Foster and Gabriel Jett, two of the top-ranked Americans in the event, and ditto in the 200 breast with Nic Fink and Will Licon.
This is a Pro Series meet, hardly a focus meet for peak performance, so placements are not a big deal and times are a secondary concern compared to tuning up for the crucial championship meets down the line. But as we’ve seen on so many occasions over the past year, Marchand is a talent that can only be described as special. Even outside of a taper meet, we never know when he will unleash his next jaw-dropping effort.
.jpg "2023 TYR Pro Swim Series Westmont - logo"){kind=logo}
Can’t see him doing much outside the IMs, although it will be exciting to see how close he is to those WRs.