Léon Marchand returned to the place where he had been happy to discover that he was no longer the same person, the same swimmer, the same youthful power who at 22 years old conquered four Olympic championships. Paris was also not the same city as in 2024. The water of Saint Denis was not the water of La Défense. The massive audience of the Games had been reduced to a familiar crowd of die-hard enthusiasts. The ministers of the Republic no longer watched him from the box. President Macron preferred to stay at his summer residence in Bormes-les-Mimosas rather than go shake his heroic hand, his flexible hand, his rubber wrist, that instrument which, no matter how much he sharpens it with surgeon’s technique to cut the water and push it better, did not provide him this Saturday with the necessary grip to break the long-awaited world record in the 200-meter butterfly that he has been chasing since the pandemic. Marchand was content with winning the first individual title of his career at a European swimming championship with a time of 1 minute 51.72 seconds.
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The glory of the unexpected, the mystery of organisms that discover themselves in the act of spring development, has given way to an excellent productive plateau. All good. But, as Marchand said this week while preparing for the final, “I got bored.” The result was magnificent: 1m 51.72s was the eighth-best time in history. A threshold only surpassed by Michael Phelps, Kristof Milak, and Marchand himself when he swam 1m 51.21s at the Paris Games, 51 hundredths of a second faster than at this European championship where he has already turned 24. Age is a burden. All the money that professionalism and sponsorship have provided to the world swimming stars over the past decade is not enough. Absolute dedication is not enough. The peace of a resolved financial life is not enough to prevent the mind and body from wearing out. That is Marchand’s struggle.
He lacked someone to push him. Hungarian Hubert Kos tried in the first one and a half lengths. The backstroke master, his teammate in Austin, where they are part of the superstar group gathered by Bob Bowman, swam the first 100 in 53.32 seconds. A suicidal pace. Kos could not emulate his compatriot Milak in the 2024 final. That produced what is probably the best Olympic 200 butterfly final in history. Kristof Milak, world record holder, heir to Phelps in the realm of the physiologically most demanding event, Olympic champion in Tokyo, went for his second gold in the specialty. With such determination that he passed the 150-meter wall in 1m 21.52s. Anyone would have given up before such an attack except Marchand, who used the last turn to recover the disadvantage: no less than 0.72 seconds in 35 meters. Head to head, in the last 15 meters Marchand prevailed. He was aided by the drop of reserve energy provided by his aerodynamic body, his ability to float on the water avoiding friction, the clamor of the French crowd cheering him on, the adrenaline of pressure. All that which today in Saint Denis — without Kos, sunk in the last 50 — had disappeared. Those intangibles which, quantified, translate into 51 hundredths of a second more. Good enough to win the European, but far from glory. Hungarian Richard Marton was second with 1m 54.06s. Greek Apostolos Siskos was bronze with 1m 54.13s. Kos, broken after paying dearly for his energy debt, finished sixth in 1m 54.89s. Poor times, considering that since May 2024, 25 times faster than 1m 54.06s have been set. Times that did not spur the great champion in his record chimera, held by Milak since the 2022 World Championships in Budapest: 1m 50.34s.
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“I wanted to test myself,” Marchand said on Friday after swimming the semifinal in splits that approached the record. “I wanted to know what it feels like, in terms of pain, to go a little faster than usual. I am swimming a little closer to the surface of the water than before; and I have made times I have never made at this point in the season.”
He was a second and a half away from the Milak Summit. He celebrated it discreetly. Fist closed. Stone face. At 24 years old he knows that the time of physical and mental fullness does not wait for him. All the obsessives of this sport know it. The 200 butterfly is no place for old men. Milak made his best time at 22, Phelps made his best time with an illegal swimsuit at 24, Laszlo Cseh reached his limit at 22. Chad Le Clos at 22. Marchand is at the limit.
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