TIME OF OUR LIVES

Léon Marchand, the face of the Paris Olympics, and Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, reminisce on one of the most pivotal moments in the history of competitive swimming-the breaking of the legend's final world record.

- STEPHANIE IP

Four minutes, 2.50 seconds. French swimmer Léon Marchand had set a new World Record in the 400-metres Individual Medley at the World Aquatic Championships 2023 in Fukuoka, beating Michael Phelps’s time by an astonishing 1.54 seconds and taking down the Olympic legend’s last remaining individual record. Phelps is one of the world’s greatest-ever swimmers, with 28 Olympic medals under his belt, and until Marchand came along there were few others who could match his speed, charisma and presence at the pool.

But Marchand is something else. He’s training under Phelps’s former coach, Bob Bowman, and, at the time of writing, has just set a new Olympic Record for the 400- metres Individual Medley at the Paris games. There’s great anticipation for him to deliver wins in his four events—400-metres Individual Medley, 200-metres Breaststroke, 200-metres Butterfly and 200-metres Individual Medley—on his home soil. Phelps, who’s commentating and offering analysis at the Olympics as NBC’s broadcast contributor, would no doubt have much to say during Marchand’s races.

But all of them good things: the swimming legends met for the first time in Fukuoka at the World Champs in 2023. Marchand recalls, “I’d just finished my 400 metres in the preliminaries, before the final. Michael was in the stands and he called me over. It was the first time I’d met him and he said, ‘Go get it tonight.’ He was excited for me. I felt really good after the prelims. I’d met a legend and I was ready to go.”

“I said, ‘Yeah dude, just rip one tonight,’” says Phelps. They’d messaged back and forth before and Phelps, who stayed in close contact with Bob Bowman, had heard much about what Marchand was going through just based on his own training. “I just said to him, ‘See what you can do. Records are meant to be broken.’ This was the kid who was going to break my record, there was no doubt about it,” recalls Phelps.