crowned in the 200m medley, Marchand is the first Frenchman to be a five-time world champion

2023-07-27 15:13:59

In the 200m medley, Frenchman Léon Marchand won a third title on Thursday at the 2023 World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka (Japan). A new crown which, combined with the two of 2022, makes it the first Frenchman in history to be five times world champion.

Published on: 07/27/2023 – 15:13

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Frenchman Léon Marchand won his third crown at these swimming worlds by dominating the 200m medley on Thursday July 27 in Fukuoka (Japan).

By winning in 1 min 54 sec 82/100, he set a new European distance record and became the only French swimmer to hold five world crowns.

Already in history

After the 400m medley at the start of these worlds and the 200m butterfly on Wednesday, Marchand added a fifth gold medal to his list, a year after his first two titles, already in the 200m medley and the 400m 4 swimming.

He won ahead of two Britons: Duncan Scott, second and relegated to more than a second, and Tom Dean.

Once again, the 21-year-old from Toulouse, a pupil of Bob Bowman, the former mentor of legend Michael Phelps, made the difference thanks to supersonic flows, where he each time created impressive gaps with his competitors.

He took advantage of this final to beat, for the fourth time in his career, the French record for the distance, and also seized the old European record of Hungarian Laszlo Cseh.

Marchand did 36 hundredths better than the 1 min 55 sec 18/100 achieved by Cseh during the 2008 world championships in Rome, fifteen years ago.

With AFP