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With a flag-waving crowd cheering his every stroke, Léon Marchand delivered a swimming gold for France with a dominating victory in the men’s 400-meter individual medley Sunday, while Torri Huske beat U.S. teammate and world-record holder Gretchen Walsh to win the women’s 100-meter butterfly.
Marchand was ahead as soon as his head popped out from the water, and he steadily pulled away from the field in what was essentially two separate races: Marchand racing the clock and everyone else competing for silver and bronze.
He was under world-record pace on the final turn but faded a bit coming home, touching in 4 minutes, 2.95 seconds — an Olympic record, but just shy of the world mark of 4:02.50 that he set at last year’s world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, erasing a record held by Michael Phelps for 15 years.
Not surprisingly, the young Frenchman has drawn comparisons to Phelps, and he is guided by the same coach: American Bob Bowman, who was with the most decorated athlete in Olympic history throughout his career.
Marchand lived up to those staggering expectations, for one night at least, and fulfilled the hopes of the host nation with a performance that sets him up to be one of the biggest stars of the Paris Games. And Phelps was in the building to witness it, analyzing the race as a member of the NBC broadcast team.
La Defense Arena was packed with more than 15,000 fans, many of them with their faces painted in the blue, white and red of the tricolor banner. Chants of “Léon! Léon! Léon!” and an impromptu rendition of “La Marseillaise” broke out in the rugby stadium a full 15 minutes before Marchand walked on deck for the first final of evening.
The 22-year-old Marchand, who trained in the U.S. while attending Arizona State, seemed to have the weight of all of France on his…
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