NANTERRE, France (AP) — Turns out, those comparisons to Michael Phelps weren’t far fetched at all when it comes to Léon Marchand.
They certainly weren’t a burden for the 22-year-old Frenchman.
Marchand completed one of the most audacious doubles in swimming history Wednesday night, winning the 200-meter butterfly and the 200 breaststroke about two hours apart in front of a home crowd cheering his every stroke.
Two grueling races. Two very different strokes. Two Olympic records. Two gold medals.
Take that, Phelps, who did several doubles of his own while claiming a record eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“I’m a really shy person,” Marchand said. “I was kind of the center of attention during those two races. I was trying to get the energy from the whole crowd. They’re amazing to me, pushing me in every final.”
Thrilling the French fans and claiming the spotlight even on a night when Katie Ledecky romped to another gold medal, Marchand notched his second and third victories at La Defense Arena and stamped himself — with the Olympics not even a week old — as one of the faces of the Paris Games.
After rallying to beat world-record holder and defending Olympic champion Kristóf Milák in the 200 fly with a finishing kick for the ages, Marchand made it look easy in the 200 breast.
He led all the way, touching in 2 minutes, 5.85 seconds as more than 15,000 fans — many of them holding up cardboard cutouts of his smiling face — nearly blew the roof off La Defense Arena.
“Léon! Léon! Léon!” they screamed, a chant that was sure to carry on through the night in Paris.
Marchand gets thing rolling
Trailing most of the way in the 200 fly, Marchand surged past the Hungarian Milák on the final lap to finish with an Olympic record of 1:51.21, touching first by just by .54 of a second.
Marchand’s final lap was nearly 0.66 faster than anyone else in the field — and 1.26 clear of Milák.
“I’ve been watching so many races from him,” Marchand said. “I know he has a lot of speed, way more than me, so I was just trying to get as close as possible, and then just push it until the end.”
The bronze went to Canada’s Ilya Kharun.
