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Video length: 4 mins.
The program “At the Games, citizens!” followed Léon Marchand on his return to France this summer.
The Paris 2024 Olympics are still a long way off, but they already have their tricolor star: Léon Marchand. At 21, the one who has just retained his title on Sunday July 23 of world champion in the 400m medley – beating Michael Phelps’ last world record in passing – will be one of the tricolor attractions next summer, in the Olympic swimming pool of Saint-Denis.
Back to mom and dad
This expectation, the Toulousain can measure it on each of his returns to France. Left to settle in the United States to be trained there by Bob Bowman, the ex-coach of Phelps, Léon Marchand returns each summer for two months of training in his native pink city. “It does him good to recharge his batteries with his family, he needs that, to be close to his little brother, his parents, his friends”, assures his other coach, Nicolas Castel.
A summer period that sees the world champion return to mum and dad, for his greatest pleasure: “For 10 months I had to cook for myself, my laundry. I was very independent and it’s true that it feels good to come back, to live as I was before. This is where I grew up, where I spent 19 years of my life”. But these two months in France have another advantage in the eyes of Bob Bowman: “It’s good for him to be in France and to measure the expectation at the Olympic Games. And even at the Games it will be 10 times worse than what we are experiencing here.”