(Paris) Already a triple Olympic champion, Léon Marchand qualified on Thursday for the semi-finals of the 200m medley, the last individual event on his programme.
The day after his crazy evening marked by an unprecedented double 200m butterfly-200m breaststroke, after having already won the 400m medley on Sunday, the 22-year-old Frenchman set the third fastest time in the series in 1 min 57.86 sec.
He maintains a margin of three seconds on his best time (1:5482), achieved in 2023 to win the Fukuoka World Championships.
Among his announced rivals, the Japanese Daiya Seto dominated the debates (1:5748) ahead of the British Duncan Foster (1:5777). The Chinese Wang Shun, reigning Olympic champion in the 200 m medley, achieved the 6e time in 1 min 58 s 09.
The 200m medley is the ultimate individual challenge for Marchand, double world champion of the distance in 2022 and 2023, but with a narrower margin than in the 400m medley.
The semi-finals are scheduled for 9:47 p.m. and the final on Friday at 8:43 p.m.
The Toulouse player should end his Games with the 4x100m medley relay, the heats of which are scheduled for Saturday morning and the final for Sunday evening.