Rarely has the combination of a transcendent athlete, a home-country setting, a global television audience and a runaway train of hype converged in one breathless moment — and then that moment met by an atmosphere and a performance that somehow exceeded its colossal buildup.
Such was the effect of the tour de force unleashed Sunday night by Marchand, a 22-year-old from Toulouse, in the 400 IM — a race that is supposed to be the toughest in swimming but he made appear somehow easy.
Marchand’s time of 4 minutes 2.95 seconds was good enough to win the race by 5.67 seconds — the largest margin of victory in history in this event — and broke the Olympic record set by Michael Phelps in Beijing in 2008. Only in the last 50 meters did he slip below his own world record pace from a year ago, when he announced his arrival as an international force by shattering Phelps’s 2009 world standard.
“I was trying to focus on myself, but it’s really hard when 15,000 people are cheering for me,” Marchand said. “I did well in trying to use this energy to swim as fast as possible. I was trying to … go for it from the very beginning. The freestyle was a little tough at the end, but 4:02 is amazing, so I’m really amazed by today.”
From the point Marchand touched the wall, the rest of his night was a whir of controlled chaos.
He sat on the lane line and raised his fists, the crowd’s roar finding new levels of earsplitting with each gesture, then lifted his slender frame out of the pool. He found friends and family in the lower bowl of the stadium and hugged them. He appeared on the top stop of the medal stand and led the crowd in a stirring, unison, full-throated rendition of “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem.
“The emotions are very difficult to describe,” he said. “I think it’s very rare you get to experience this. I had the chance to be here and to be in form and to perform at my [top] level. I opened my eyes, I listened to everything going on around me, and that really pushed me to do a good race.”
Before Marchand could make his way to his appointment with the media, he was handed a cellphone. On the other end was French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron appeared to be doing most of the talking, with Marchand’s face mostly locked into a toothy smile, but a practiced lip-reader could see the latter responding from time to time: “Merci beaucoup.”
“He told me that he had watched the final with his whole family, that they had screamed, really enjoyed the moment,” Marchand later told French reporters. “It was cool.” The French president also wished him well with the rest of his Olympic program, which includes the 200 IM, 200 butterfly and 200 breaststroke.
Scattered across La Défense Arena on Sunday were living, breathing segments of a human arc that collectively closed a great circle of life around Marchand.
In the stands were his parents, both of them former French Olympic swimmers. His father, Xavier, was a noted medley swimmer and former national champion who once faced off against a young Phelps and lost to him by nearly nine seconds.
In the NBC broadcast booth was Phelps himself, whose last remaining world record was dismantled by Marchand a year ago and who on Sunday night said goodbye to his Olympic record in the event.
And on the pool deck was Bob Bowman, who built his name in the sport as Phelps’s coach, guiding the latter to an unprecedented 23 Olympic golds — his reputation such that, some four years ago, a young Marchand cold-emailed him asking whether he would be willing to train a then-18-year-old French kid with big dreams and some intriguing times in the IMs.
“He’s the best in history in this event,” said Bowman, who would know perhaps better than anyone on the planet. “He can be better. He’s not reached his potential. That was a great swim. [But] he can definitely swim faster than that.”
Two hours before the session began, lines to get in wrapped around the arena. Some fans carried air horns. Some wore homemade masks of Marchand’s face over their own. Face-painted French flags were de rigueur on the cheeks.
Once settled into their seats, they did not have to wait long. The 400 IM final was the evening’s first race, with Marchand, in the center lane of the pool, the last to be introduced. Unlike Phelps’s glowering, brooding bundle of prerace intensity, Marchand sauntered onto the pool deck waving to the crowd with both arms. He even shot a warm smile at the television camera following him.
In the moment, it seemed like maybe Marchand wasn’t prepared to meet the moment with the proper focus. In hindsight, you can conclude he simply knew what he was about to unleash.
“He was in a very good mind-frame before the race. He was relaxed. He had taken a really good nap in the afternoon,” Bowman said. “And I was very confident because he was just being himself.”
The French call the four medley strokes papillon (butterfly), dos (backstroke), brasse (breaststroke) and nage libre (freestyle), and Marchand crushed them all, going wire to wire in victory. He led by a half-second after the papillon and by nearly three seconds after the dos, the crowd growing higher in pitch and louder in volume with every length.
But it was during the brasse that the dial was cranked to 11, the crowd meeting each of Marchand’s breaths with its collective exhortations. By the time he finished the race, chlorine-addled swimming lifers could find nothing in their memories to compare. Bowman, who had been with Phelps from Sydney to Athens to Beijing to London to Rio de Janeiro, could not remember a more electric atmosphere at a swim meet.
“I’m not sure there’s been anything like this,” Bowman said. “It was amazing, really. It was crazy.”
Marchand was billed during the run-up to these Games as the face of the Paris Olympics, a designation that may have baffled some, including many American viewers, who were barely familiar with his story.
But on Sunday night, millions could finally put a face to the name. It is a baby face, a warm face. And from atop the medal stand, it was framed by a glowing smile and a golden, chiseled chunk of the Eiffel Tower dangling from his neck.