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Leon Marchand, the 22-year-old French swimmer put up a remarkable performance in the 100m breaststroke event of the ongoing Speedo Grand Challenge 2024. Having registered a duration of 1:00.62, the Toulouse native broke the meet record that was held by the seven-time Olympic medalist from Japan, Kosuke Kitajima (1:00.63).
With this performance, Marchand also went past his own personal best of 1:01.2 in the event, which he registered during the French Elite Championships in 2023.
After a superb performance in the prelims of the event, Leon Marchand will look to deliver a similar showing in the finals of the event. However, he will face tough resistance from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics gold medalist, Michael Andrew. With a personal best of 58.14 seconds at the 2020 USA Swimming trials, Andrew will pose a serious challenge to Marchand in the finals.
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However, Marchand will be delighted with his performance as it comes just a few weeks ahead of the French Elite Championships, which will serve as France's Olympic qualifying event for swimming. His success will give him a lot of confidence as he looks to make it to the quadrennial event.
Leon Marchand impresses at the 2024 NCAA Division I Championships
Competing for Arizona State University, Leon Marchand produced a stunning performance at the NCAA Division I Swimming Championships. He not only helped his university clinch the championships with 523.5 points but also registered numerous laurels and records on a personal note.
His most praiseworthy performance came in the Men's 500-yard freestyle finals as he clinched the top position on the podium at 4:02.31. Texas's Luke Hobson and Georgia's Jake Magahey ended second and third respectively.
Marchand's next major performance in the 2024 edition of the NCAA Division I Championships came in the 400m Individual medley event. He touched the finishing line in 3:12.12 which was also a pool record (2020 Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Chase Kalisz held the previous record).
Marchand did well in the Men's 200-yard breaststroke event as well as he touched the finishing line in 1:46.35, which is an NCAA record. Besides these individual performances, He also helped the ASU to clinch the 400 freestyle relay event alongside Jack Dolan, Patrick Sammon JR, and Jonny Kulow.
