World Swimming Championships: Léon Marchand avoids elimination in the 400m medley heats

Time to run out of steam? Supersonic in the 200-meter medley, Léon Marchand gave himself a scare in the heats of his other favorite distance, the 400-meter medley, on Sunday, August 3 in Singapore, posting only the seventh fastest time. Enough to qualify for the final, but much less to build confidence for the race, which will take place at 1:59 p.m. French time.

The Toulouse native swam his eight lengths in 4 min 13 sec 19, quite a distance behind the leader, the Japanese Asaki Nishikawa (4 min 10 sec 41). He himself admitted that he was "a bit struggling" and somewhat "worried." "I would have preferred to have the best time this morning. But it didn't go as planned," reacted the Frenchman.

"It's weird because I slept well, I felt good this morning. But that's swimming, so sometimes you dive in and you don't feel good. I still tried to do the first 200m. But even then, I was a bit strong, not necessarily relaxed, so it wasn't great."

Direct consequence: Léon Marchand, who won the title and the world record in the 200-meter medley on Thursday, July 31, will start from lane number 1 in the final. Not ideal for managing the race, but he'll make do: "I'll only be looking one way. It's not a big deal, I'll try to run my race. But it's true that it will be more difficult to control the race. I won't be able to hide, I'll have to go for it from the start."

Léon Marchand's day could be filled with another event, with the final of the men's 4x100m medley relay. Seventh in the heats, the French team is currently composed of Yohann Ndoye-Brouard (double bronze medalist in the 100 and 200 meters backstroke), Jérémie Delbois (breaststroke), Clément Secchi (butterfly) and Maxime Grousset (double crowned in the butterfly but lined up in the front crawl, where he swam the 100 meters final).

The final, however, was scheduled just half an hour after the 400m medley. The surprise came from the unexpected eliminations of the Chinese, the reigning Olympic champions, as well as the Australians.