Swimming: It's back-to-school time for Léon Marchand, who takes on the crawl challenge

Four months after his last competition, four-time Olympic champion Léon Marchand returns to the pool this week for a meeting in Florida, where he will be competing in five races, including two in crawl, his new Olympic challenge.

At the "Tyr Pro Series" in Fort Lauderdale near Miami, Marchand was announced for three of his favorite races (200m breaststroke, 200 and 400m medley) but also for the 200 and 400m freestyle, two unusual events for the 22-year-old swimmer.

For his return to competition, the hero of the Paris Games will mainly focus on getting his bearings. "I'm going to try to be in good shape so I can set good times and know where I stand, because I have no idea where I stand!" he explained recently in an interview with several French media outlets, including AFP.

After his incredible summer of 2024, punctuated by four Olympic titles (and a bronze medal) in the La Défense pool, the swimmer returned to competition in October by competing in three stages of the Short Course World Cup in Asia, before being overtaken by fatigue. Claiming to be exhausted, he withdrew from the Short Course World Championships in December in Budapest.

“Getting out of my comfort zone” -

Leon Marchand

"I had a bit of a slump in terms of energy and mental health. I didn't really want to get up in the morning to go to training. I was a little more tired than normal," he admits.

The need to recharge his batteries was then felt and Marchand flew off at the beginning of the year for a three-month exile in Australia, where he resumed training under the orders of Dean Boxall, the illustrious swimming coach who notably brought Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O'Callaghan to the rank of Olympic champions in Paris.

It was there, with this atypical and passionate coach, that Marchand focused on crawl. "Dean Boxall has a lot of Olympic medals in freestyle swimming distances, and 80% of his group are crawlers," he explains. "We did a lot of techniques, a lot of sets that prepare for the 200 and 400 crawl."

Since then, Marchand has been reunited with his coach Bob Bowman in Texas where he continues to develop his freestyle swimming, his challenge for the new Olympics in preparation for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

"Every year I change a lot of things. I feel like if I do the same thing over and over again, I'll get bored and I won't swim any faster," he explains. "I need that to improve, I need to get out of my comfort zone and do things I've never done before."

“It makes me vibrate”

Leon Marchand

"If I want to swim faster, I need to change my strategy, to start new races where I have no reference points. Besides, I have no idea how to swim a 400m crawl!" he jokes.

"It'll be okay because Bob (Bowman) knows how to do it, but the first 400m crawl won't be easy. But it will also be the most exciting because it's all new."

Over this distance, his personal best, which dates back to January 2020, is only 4 min 4 sec 65/100, a long way from the world record of 3 min 39 sec 96/100 set by the German Lukas Märtens in mid-April. But that's not enough to discourage the Frenchman. "Actually, it thrills me because I don't know if (this kind of time) is possible for me!" he says.

In Florida, Marchand will join some 700 swimmers, including many Olympic champions, such as Americans Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky, and Canadian Summer McIntosh. He has his sights set on the World Championships in Singapore this summer, which he says he "wants" to compete in.