Not a single person in the many-century history of Olympic swimming, not even Michael Phelps, had ever taken home medals in both the breaststroke and the butterfly.
Leon Marchand swam two golden Olympic records on Wednesday at Paris La Défense Arena in a time of 116 minutes.
At 8:38 p.m., he emerged out an improvised tunnel. He won the 200-meter butterfly after blasting past Hungarian champion Kristof Milak in the last stretch with an ear-rattling French shout. He gave a finger wag. His fist tightened slightly. Raising his body from the pool, he gestured to the gathering.
Then he headed straight for a warm-down pool. About nine o’clock at night, it turned into a warm-up pool. He reappeared at 10:32, winning his third gold medal of the 2024 Games and leading the 200-meter breaststroke from start to finish.
He smacked the water this time, and then again. He joyously raised both of his arms. And for an instant he remained motionless, taking in the history first by the starting blocks and then on a platform.
As the great golden hope of the host country, he had traveled to Paris. He turned into a living legend on his second spectacular night of these Olympics, with swims that echoed all over France. A French pundit praised “King Léon!”
He was even taken aback by himself.
“I knew it was possible for me to do [both] — but just to finish those races, maybe not win them,” Marchand stated. “I never knew that [was possible].”
In swimming jargon, this was referred to as a “double,” so uncommon that the two finals were originally planned for Wednesday night back-to-back. The fly stroke moves from out to in over the water, while the breast stroke moves from in to out below.
The closest anyone had come to medaling in both events since the fly was established to the Olympic calendar in 1956 was American Mary Sears, who placed eighth in the 200 breast and took home the bronze in the 100 fly. Most swimmers only try their hand at one or the other.
Then Marchand—the next Michael Phelps—arrived. A French phenomenon, Marchand was dubbed “the new monster.”
Thus, he thought that night might have been the most ambitious in Olympic swimming history during the previous year. Meanwhile, his coaches pushed for a change in the timetable.
French swimming technical director Julien Issoulié told Le Monde that the reason organizers “had never encountered this problem, because until now, no very high-level swimmer had done the 200 breaststroke and the 200 butterfly.”
Towards the end of the evening, they finally decided to shift the 200 breast, which made the double conceivable but still extremely unlikely. Marchand, a 22-year-old expert swimmer and aerobic freak, provided credibility to the idea.
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He accomplished something on Wednesday that many in the sport would have thought impossible.
He lagged behind Milak by over 0.5 seconds at the 50, 100, and 150 meters in the fly. Then, in the last 50 meters, he outran Milak by 1.26 seconds, blowing past him. As charged, his nation exploded. The beams quivered. Marchand subsequently remarked, “I could hear the whole pool going crazy.” “I believe that’s the reason I won that race.”
The emotional rush was too much to refuse. Marchand, however, did not move. In French, he remarked, “I enjoyed it without losing too much energy.” He vanished from view so that he could concentrate.
