It’s official: Léon Marchand owns the pool after winning his fourth gold medal.
Léon Marchand walked out to an adoring audience before his final individual event of these Olympics on Friday night. He’d already won them over — the home crowd, the city of Paris, the country of France — but he had another race to win.
Just a week ago, Marchand, a 22-year-old Frenchman, had never won an Olympic medal. Now, after another win and another Olympic record, this time in the 200-meter individual medley, he has four individual gold medals, joining the Americans Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz as the only male swimmers to achieve that feat at a single Olympics.
Marchand held up four fingers on his right hand at the end of his race. Then he hoisted himself out of the pool and raised both arms into the air triumphantly, his ambitious quest complete As much as he’d prepared himself for the physical and mental challenge of these Olympics, Marchand hadn’t known if what he was trying to do was possible. Until he did it.
Marchand started the week with a commanding win in his best event, the 400 individual medley. When he dove into the water, he said, he felt liberated from the pressure and expectations that had been placed on him as one of France’s great hopes of these Games on its home soil. After that, he said, it was “pure fun.” On Wednesday, he pulled off a feat we are not likely to see ever again, winning both the 200 butterfly and the 200 breaststroke in the span of 114 minutes.
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