He will be one of the most anticipated headliners of French sport at the Olympic Games next summer.
The swimmer Léon Marchand, who will be 22 years old when he dives into the Paris La Défense Arena pool, promises to be one of the great medal providers for the French delegation.
Triple world champion in Fukuoka, Japan, last year in the 400m medley, 200m medley and 200m butterfly, the Toulouse native can potentially compete for four individual titles.
The three for which he holds the world crown plus the 200m breaststroke which he had to skip last year.
✅ Beat Michael Phelps' world record, ahead of Michael Phelps
👑 Léon Marchand is world champion in the 400m medley pic.twitter.com/F05AtolBug
— Equipe France (@EquipeFRA) July 23, 2023
But the appetite of the leader of the Blues, who continues his preparation at his university in Arizona, risked coming up against the indigestible programming of the swimming events.
From now on, the choice of embarrassment will be able to change into embarrassment of choice.
In the calendar established by the international swimming federation (World Aquatics), the Organizing Committee and the broadcasters (in particular the American giant NBC), the French prodigy already knew that he had gained a little time on his day of Tuesday July 30 where 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke were initially to follow one another in heats and semi-finals.
If he decides to take on the challenge, Marchand will have about an hour to switch from one race to another.
The French federation (FFN) is still awaiting official feedback, also a priori positive, for the day of Wednesday July 31.
In a session where the high point will be the final of the men's 100m NL at the end, the finals of the 200m butterfly and the 200m breaststroke were to follow each other at the start of the evening, with barely a few minutes of difference.
A physically impossible sequence for Léon Marchand.
If the modification of the order of races is confirmed in the coming days (and obviously subject to qualification), Bob Bowman's protégé (who also weighed in on the discussions) will have all the aces up his sleeve to achieve a sumptuous square.
On the side of the federation, we regret that the problem was not dealt with upstream to put France in the best conditions.
The staff began to alert the Cojo two years ago during the emergence of the Marchand phenomenon about possible scheduling conflicts.
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A post shared by Leon Marchand (@leon.marchand31)
Nothing really changed until last summer when the young man's talent splashed the Japanese pool and international swimming with the 400m medley world record which belonged to the American legend Michael Phelps.
But at that time the TV rights were already secured and the tickets sold, which made it impossible to reverse the days of certain events.
However, the Blues would have liked, for example, that the final of the men's 4x200m NL relay (of which the TOEC Dauphins licensee is the leader) was not placed on Tuesday July 30... just after the semi-finals of the 200m breaststroke.
A nice puzzle for everyone.
But he is everywhere, this Merchant…