Léon Marchand crushed Ryan Lochte’s world record in the 200m individual medley by more than one second in the World Championships semifinals.
Marchand, the Frenchman who won four individual golds at the 2024 Paris Olympics, clocked 1 minute, 52.69 seconds in Singapore.
That erased the world record of 1:54.00 set by Lochte at the 2011 Worlds.
“My plan was to be, like, really close to my PB (personal best of 1:54.06),” Marchand said on Peacock. “It ended up being unbelievable because 1:52, I never thought about this.”
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Marchand previously broke Michael Phelps’ 400m IM world record at the 2023 Worlds — by 1.34 seconds. That was Phelps’ last remaining individual world record.
Marchand swims the 200m IM final at worlds on Thursday. The session starts at 7 a.m. ET, live on Peacock.
Marchand, who said it has been a difficult post-Olympic season, chose a leaner program at these worlds than he had in Paris. That was in part to chase Lochte’s world record.
He dropped the 200m breaststroke and 200m butterfly, his two closest races in Paris (the two Olympic finals were about 1 hour, 45 minutes apart).
Giving up the 200m fly meant he could swim the 200m IM at worlds rested without any prior events.
Marchand will go for a third world title in the 400m IM on the last day of the eight-day meet on Sunday.
He is now the second man to own both individual medley world records in the last 30 years. The other: Phelps.
“I feel like all the choices I made this year were the right ones, and I want to thank everyone who’s been supporting me,” Marchand said in French, according to a translation. “Since the Games, I’ve had this goal in mind. I didn’t expect things to come together again so quickly.”
Marchand took six weeks of vacation after the Olympics, according to L’Equipe. Then on Nov. 1, he broke Lochte’s 200m IM world record for 25-meter short course pools, which are used less frequently than the 50-meter pools at most major meets like the Olympics.
He swam and surfed in Australia over three months early this year (during which he cracked a rib, missing a week) before settling back down in Austin, Texas, where he trains under Bob Bowman, who was Phelps’ career-long coach.
“I think that his year has unfolded — other than the injuries — it’s kind of been what he wanted,” Bowman said before worlds. “I think he needed a mental break. I think he needed to go away to Australia to get out of France for a while. And then when he was ready to come back, he’s done very well in Texas.”
France’s Leon Marchand developed into the world’s best male all-around swimmer under Bob Bowman, who sees similarities between Marchand and Michael Phelps.
