Swimming | A Canadian on the Marchand tsunami

(Paris) Behind the tsunami caused by Léon Marchand, the unstoppable French submersible, a 19-year-old Canadian surfed his way to the podium on Wednesday evening at the Paris Olympic Games.

By winning bronze in the 200-metre butterfly, Montreal-born but Las Vegas-raised Ilya Kharun snapped a 12-year drought for Canadian men’s swimming, which had been overshadowed by its women’s counterpart since 2016.

“It’s a great honour,” Kharun said after receiving his medal, wrapping the ribbon around it as he answered questions from Canadian journalists who tried to get to know him better.

“I’m very happy to represent Canada. It’s so fantastic to show everyone what I can do. It’s just the beginning, because I still have a lot to work on, but I’m very happy to have won bronze. It’s every athlete’s dream.”

Brent Hayden and Ryan Cochrane won bronze and silver medals at the 2012 London Olympics. Ilya Kharun, who was 7 at the time, remembered the name of the former, but not the latter.

His parents, Ukrainian acrobats, traveled to different countries with a traveling circus. After landing a contract with Cirque du Soleil, they settled in Montreal, where Ilya was born in 2005. The family moved to Nevada the following year.

His father, a giant, was a keynote speaker in a trio, while his mother took part in a family act in which she played a similar role between two acrobats.

“They were part of something that was world-renowned,” Kharun later recalled at a news conference.

His parents wanted to introduce him to circus art in Las Vegas, but the activity was too expensive. “They had me try different sports and I just ended up with swimming.”

After setting a national age group record, Kharun discovered he couldn’t represent the United States at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in the summer of 2022 because he wasn’t a citizen. His Canadian passport opened the door for him to the Canadian team, with whom he won two medals at the Short Course World Championships in Melbourne at the end of the year, in addition to setting two junior world records.

Last summer, he tied for fourth in the 200 butterfly at the 50m World Championships in Melbourne. He was recruited by coach Bob Bowman to challenge Marchand in the butterfly style with the Arizona State Sun Devils, who won their first NCAA championships in the spring.

The Marchand phenomenon

At the Olympic Trials, Kharun was telling anyone who would listen that he would beat his French teammate and friend at the Olympics. In the call room at La Défense Arena on Wednesday night, they didn’t really speak until the 200m butterfly final. “I had my headphones on,” smiled Kharun, who was motivating himself with rap.

More than the Canadian, Marchand was mainly focused on following Hungarian Kristóf Milák, who started in line 4 by virtue of his best time in the semi-final. As expected by the Frenchman, the world record holder had the best start, holding Marchand in check until the last turn.

This is where Marchand, carried away by 15,000 delirious spectators, worked his magic, transforming himself into a human torpedo to execute another epic slide. Emerging from the water, he was almost level with the Hungarian giant, with whom he was neck and neck in the last 25 meters, before breaking away just before the wall.

With a time of 1 min 51.22 s, he even managed to steal Milák’s Olympic record, which he achieved half a second later.

“I had chills throughout the race!” Marchand said. “At the end, I tried to stop breathing and touch the wall as quickly as possible. Afterwards, I saw that I was first… It was a pretty crazy feeling!”

Kharun followed in 1min 52.80sec, bettering his national mark by more than a second and moving him to seventh on the all-time list.

“I heard all those screams, but I was very focused on trying to catch up with them,” he said. “I’m really happy with the result.”

An hour after the race, Kharun and Marchand were able to exchange a few words before the medal ceremony. “He told me he was very proud of me and I told him I was very proud of him,” said the Canadian. “Everything he does is absolutely crazy. It’s so cool that I can call him my friend and my teammate.”

A double in the same evening

Marchand was not able to fully enjoy The Marseillaise because his day of glory had not quite arrived yet. A little over an hour later, the 22-year-old from Toulouse had to dive back in for the 200m breaststroke, the second leg of his attempt at an unprecedented double, achieved only three times in history.

In truth, no one doubted her ability to repeat what the East German swimmer Kornelia Enders, of sulphurous memory, had accomplished in Montreal in 1976 (200 m freestyle and 100 m butterfly).

Buoyed by the “hey”s shouted by the spectators each time he emerged, Marchand quickly pulled away from the Australian Zac Stubblety-Cook and the Dutch Caspar Corbeau, second and third, en route to an Olympic record (2 min 5.85 s) and his second gold medal of the evening, his third in the City of Lights.

There, he was able to let loose, punching the water with his fist before tumbling into the neighboring lane. He pulled himself out of the pool to raise his arms high, giving himself a few seconds to absorb the magnitude of his feat, accomplished in two completely different styles. Even the volunteers at the accreditation table stood up to applaud him.

“What a joy!” said the hero of the evening after receiving his second medal and allowing himself to high-five each of the spectators in the front row, including the lifeguard!

Still relaxed, seemingly unaffected by the pressure, Marchand continued the interviews, all smiles in the mixed zone. He nevertheless revealed that he had “a lot of doubts.” It was Bowman who gave him the green light after his victory in the 400m IM on Sunday.

“He told me: ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ I was pleased and I managed to get the confidence I was missing. We’ve done a great job since the beginning. Yeah, it’s crazy.”

Naturally very confident, Kharun said his turn would come before long. [Léon] “He works hard, he’s so talented, but I’m still young and I’ll definitely get him next time,” said the man who now holds a US passport.

After the late-night press conference, Léon Marchand walked back to the apartment the French team rented for him near the pool. He’ll be back on Thursday with the heats and semi-finals of the 200 IM, an event in which he is a two-time world champion.

As the title aptly put it The Team in one, it was really “The most Leon day”…