World Swimming Championships: Léon Marchand crowned champion in the 200m individual medley

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Admit it, you were waiting for it: the Marseillaise, the gold medal in the 200-meter medley . Léon Marchand, once again on top of the world and in the spotlight. How did he digest his fabulous world record yesterday? With difficulty.

" I slept very badly last night. I was all excited, I still had a lot of adrenaline going very late in the evening. I tried to calm down, read, watch videos, calm down a little, but it wasn't easy. So I had to wake up all day, it was a bit hard ," admits the French swimmer.

But Léon is well and truly awake and he quickly sets the record straight. On the podium with him are his two training buddies from Texas. " Tonight was a little more difficult, but I have a guy who's still magnificent. I'm really doing it with my friends, and it's great, " says Léon Marchand.

In France, in Toulouse, at Léon's favorite club, not many people are in the water. Everyone is holding their breath in front of the television until the festivities begin. " It's becoming a bit of a habit, isn't it now? " jokes a spectator. " There's a lot of pride and admiration for him, because he has a way of handling pressure that is truly extraordinary. I really admire Léon's mental strength too, " adds a fan.

The mental aspect, precisely. A year after the Olympic Games, Léon took care to take a good break, going into exile in Australia for a while to come back fresher and stronger. " He put all that aside, the pressure of the result, the weight of other people's opinions, and today he's focused on himself. He does things because he chose to do them. No one else gets to choose their place, and that strengthens him, " explains Thomas Sammut, Léon Marchand's mental trainer.

In Singapore, he has one more event on Sunday, the 400 meters. He would do well to get some sleep until then.