Leon Marchand Tabbed as Swimming World Male World/European Swimmer of the Year After Epic Olympic Campaign

The expectations on Leon Marchand in 2024 could not have been higher.

Marchand turned 22 in May, breaking into the prime age for a male swimmer. He’d been to one Olympics, as a promising teen. He’d conquered NCAA swimming like few before him, been crowned a world champion five times over and was headed into an Olympic Games in his home country.

The stage was set for Marchand to be one of the central figures of the games for France and one of the headlining swimmers of the competition. Whatever pressure that status conveyed, Marchand performed beneath it like few Olympic swimmers ever have.

Marchand’s Olympics is the stuff of legends – gold medals in the 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly and both individual medleys, plus bronze in the men’s 400 medley relay. Over 2,900 meters of racing at the Paris La Defense Arena, Marchand assembled one of the most storied Olympics in history, joining only Michael Phelps (twice), Mark Spitz and Kristin Otto in winning four individual gold medals at the same Olympics. He set four Olympic records in the process.

It makes Marchand the clear choice for Swimming World’s World Male Swimmer of the Year as well as the European Male Swimmer of the Year.

Marchand’s 2024 brilliance first played out in the NCAA realm. In his junior season at Arizona State, Marchand and coach Bob Bowman led the Sun Devils to their first national title. Marchand contributed with titles in the 200 breast, 400 IM and 500 freestyle, setting NCAA records in all four. He also helped the Sun Devils win the 400 medley and 400 free relays, plus two relay runner-up results. At the end of the season, with Bowman moving to take over the head coaching job at the University of Texas, Marchand brought an end to his college eligibility in possession of NCAA records in the 500 free, 200 breast and three IM distances.

Marchand’s international credentials had been building since his cameo at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where he made one semifinal and finished sixth in the 400 IM. That event would bring his first international senior medals the following summer, Marchand doing the IM double at the Budapest World Championships in 2022. He repeated in both, setting the 400 IM world record, and added the 200 fly crown at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka.

That preamble made Toulouse native the man to beat in Paris. No one would find a way to do that.

He began on the second night of competition in Paris with the 400 IM, where the only question was if he would best his world record. He fell .45 seconds shy of that in 4:02.95, but he beat the field by a margin of more than 5.5 seconds.

“I had goosebumps on the podium,” Marchand said then. “I felt really proud to be myself and to be also French tonight. It was an amazing time for me, and I was really living in the moment.”

On the fifth night of competition, Marchand had one of the all-time legendary sessions in the sport’s history, two races that displayed the full range of his possibilities. In the 200 fly, he trailed Kristof Milak by nearly seven-tenths at 150 meters before charging back to beat him by a half-second in 1:51.21. Less than two hours later, he was back for the final of the 200 breast, accruing a sizeable lead early to hold off a charge by Australian Zac Stubblety-Cook with nearly a second to spare, setting the European record of 2:05.85. Two gold medals, in two wildly different strokes, with two Olympic records and two reigning Olympic champions vanquished – it was the stuff of legends.

He would augment it two nights later by winning the 200 IM in 1:54.06, downing Phelps’ Olympic record that had stood since 2008 and setting the European record. A cherished medley relay bronze – the first in French history on the men’s side – was the cherry on top of the meet, one which ended with Marchand extinguishing the Olympic flame at the Tuileries Palace in central Paris.

From start to finish, the Paris Games belonged to Marchand.

World Male Swimmer of the Year

1. Leon Marchand (France)
2. Pan Zhanle (China)
3. Bobby Finke (United States)
4. Daniel Wiffen (Ireland)
5. Kristof Milak (Hungary)

European Male Swimmer of the Year

1. Leon Marchand (France)
2. Daniel Wiffen (Ireland)
3. Kristof Milak (Hungary)
4. David Popovici (Romania)
5. Hubert Kos (Hungary)