Frenzied fans greet France’s face of the Olympics
France’s face of their Olympics, Leon Marchand, felt like he could walk on water, not swim in it.
Marchand’s first appearance at the Games sparked frenzied French adulation at the Paris pool on Sunday morning.
Perhaps only Australian runner Cathy Freeman, the 2000 Sydney Olympic women’s 400m champion, can truly relate.
Like Freeman and her fabled 400m triumph at her home Sydney 2000 Olympics, Marchand is carrying a nation on his back while racing.
“It was a crazy thing,” Marchand said through a translator.
“It was beyond what I expected. Everybody was shouting my name.”
Marchand is chasing four gold medals at his home Games – the 200-400m individual medley double, the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke.
The 17,000-strong capacity crowd at La Defense Arena began wildly cheering for Marchand as soon as he strode onto the pool deck, arms aloft in appreciation.
During his 400m medley heat, the noise was ear-splitting and caused the foundations of temporary grandstands to shake.
Marchand last year broke Olympic legend Michael Phelps’s 400m medley world record – a benchmark that had stood for 15 years.
A class above his medley rivals in Paris, the question isn’t if he can win, but can he again break the world record – four minutes 02.50 seconds – in Sunday night’s final.
“I wanted to save my energy,” Marchand said after topping qualifying times from the medley heats.
“I’ve been through one (race), so I can kind of take a breath.”
Marchand’s prowess at the pool hardly surprises given his pedigree. His mother Celine Bonnet, and father Xavier Marchand, were both Olympic swimmers for France.
But the precocious talent was nearly lost to swimming.
Marchand quit the sport for a couple of years as a child because he was bored: so much faster than his training partners, he tired of spending time waiting at the wall for them to catch up.
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