The expectations were high for France’s Leon Marchand in the men’s 400 individual medley.
Safe to say, he delivered.
In front of 15,000 roaring fans at La Defense Arena, Marchand blew by his competition on Sunday with a time of 4:02.95 for his first career Olympic medal, a no-doubter of a gold.
Marchand touched the wall 5.67 seconds ahead of second-place Tomoyuki Matsushita of Japan (4:08.62) to roof-shaking applause from the home crowd. American Carson Foster took bronze with a time of 4:08.66.
“That was amazing,” Marchand told NBC’s Melissa Stark. “I don't know how to describe it. But that was amazing.”
During the breaststroke portion of the medley, the crowd bellowed “Allez!” – Go! – every time his head popped out of the water. The race was well over by then; it was all about resetting his world record at that point.
Marchand just missed out on that 4:02.50, his time at last year’s world championships, but he downed Michael Phelps’ Olympic record with Phelps looking on from the broadcast booth.
“I was trying to take that energy from the crowd and use it,” Marchand said. “The breaststroke was insane because I could hear the whole stadium.”
Marchand is the first male swimmer to win a medal for France since 2012. This is France’s seventh medal of the Paris Olympics and third gold medal.
Marchand has three more events to swim in the Paris Olympics:
- 200m butterfly (prelims on Tuesday, July 30)
- 200m breaststroke (prelims on Tuesday, July 30)
- 200m IM (prelims on Thursday, Aug. 1)