Léon Marchand, 20, world champion in the 400m medley – Liberation

At 20, he is already in the deep end. The young Frenchman Léon Marchand became world champion in the 400m medley on Saturday on the first day of the World Swimming Championships in Budapest, beating his French record by more than four seconds.

Léon Marchand beat, at the end of a perfect race, in 4 min 4 sec and 28/100, the two Americans Carson Foster, silver medalist, 20 years old like him, and the “veteran” Chase Kalisz, 28 years old, Olympic champion in Tokyo last summer.

By winning world gold, Léon Marchand swam in the footsteps of his father Xavier, until then the only French medalist in the medley in the long pool – he had won silver in the 200m medley at the World Swimming Championships in Perth, in 1998.

Already lined up at the Tokyo Games

Great hope of French swimming, Léon Marchand has already experienced the tension of an Olympic final, that of the 400m medley last summer in Tokyo, where he finished 6th when he was only 19 years old. Since then, his trajectory has taken an American turn which has taken him from Toulouse to Phoenix, where he now trains under the guidance of Bob Bowman, the emblematic coach of Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer in history with his 23 Olympic titles.

Léon Marchand has yet to start two races at the World Championships: the 200m medley and the 200m butterfly.