Léon Marchand, great hope of French swimming, disqualified Thursday for a fault in a turn during the 400m medley, finally saw his victory and his best world performance of the year validated, Friday at the San Antonio Grand Prix (Texas) . “After a further video review of Thursday night’s race, the disqualification of Léon Marchand has been overturned,” organizers said. At first, they estimated that he had been the author of a turn violation, at 350 meters, when he finished in freestyle (crawl) and had already won a race. If the inclination of his body is greater than 90 degrees, the swimmer is considered to be on his side and therefore in a back position.
He will be present at the Budapest Worlds in June
As a result of this rebound, the 19-year-old Toulousain, who ranked 6th in the Olympic final at the Tokyo Games last year, will be able to participate in the World Championships in Budapest (June 18-July 3) and the European Championships. from Rome (August 11-21). His time of 4′10′’38, the best achieved to date in 2022, proving to be well below the minima (4′17′’48) for these two competitions.
Coming very close to his French record (4′09′’65) achieved at the National Championships last year, the one who swims at the University of Arizona with Bob Bowman, the mentor of Michael Phelps, has indeed ahead of the American Jay Litherland (2nd), who arrived more than nine seconds later, while the Argentinian Joaquin Gonzalez Pinero, ranked 3rd, more than 11 seconds behind.
A second quota on 200 meters breaststroke
Marchand, who has just won the 200 yards medley (182 m) at the American university championships (NCAA), continued his harvest in Texas on Friday evening, since he also won the 200 m breaststroke in 2′09′ ‘ 24, ahead of Nic Fink (2′11′’67) and Chase Kalisz (2′12′’47). And not content with beating his personal best over the distance, the Frenchman also achieved the minima for the World and European Championships, which are set at 2′10′’32. Saturday, he will end his weekend with the 200m medley.
