By Ian Ransom
PARIS (Reuters) – The morning after shaking the foundations of La Defense Arena with a pair of astonishing gold medals, home swimmer Leon Marchand battled through pain to advance to the 200m individual medley (IM) semi-finals at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.
The 200m IM is Marchand’s final individual event and it may be the most-anticipated of the entire Olympic meet following his golden treble in the 400 IM, 200m butterfly and breaststroke, the latter two titles coming within two glorious hours late on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old will join Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Kristin Otto in an exclusive club of swimmers to have won four or more individual events at a single Games if he can pull off the 200 IM victory.
It will be a struggle, though, with Marchand admitting he was feeling the pinch from his big Wednesday after swimming third quickest into the 200 IM semi-finals.
“My body’s hurting a lot right now,” he told reporters after clocking 1:57.86, 0.38 seconds off the fastest time set by Japan’s Daiya Seto.
“It’s fine because I’ve trained for it, so I’ll be OK.
“But this morning wasn’t easy for me, I really had to try and do a 1:57.
“I hope tonight will be easier for me.”
So will the French fans, who again chanted his named and roared on his every stroke as they have throughout the meet.
All French swimmers have enjoyed full-throated cheers, including Florent Manaudou who was third quickest into the 50m freestyle semi-finals behind Australia’s Cameron McEvoy (21.32 seconds) and Cayman Islands swimmer Jordan Crooks.
American Caeleb Dressel, who beat Manaudou for the 50m gold at the Tokyo Games, scraped into the semi-finals with the equal 13th fastest swim.
Australia’s Kaylee McKeown was third into the women’s 200m backstroke semi-finals as she bids to become the first woman to complete the “double-double” — by retaining both her 100 and 200m backstroke crowns from Tokyo.
China’s Peng Xuwei topped the 200m backstroke timesheet in 2:08.29, a quarter of a second quicker than Canada’s Kylie Masse, who was runnerup behind McKeown at Tokyo.
With big guns Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan rested, Australia’s formidable women topped qualifying for the 4x200m freestyle relay final later on Thursday with a time of 7:45.63, a full six seconds clear of second-ranked Hungary.
Lani Pallister swam the leadoff leg in 1:55.74, two days after isolating in her room following a positive COVID-19 test.
“Really proud of how the girls raced this morning, everyone swam really well, so very keen to go through to tonight,” the masked-up swimmer told reporters.
Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh will battle China’s champion Zhang Yufei for the 200m butterfly crown later on Thursday in a showdown that will be closely watched due to a doping storm that has followed the Chinese swim team to Paris.
In one of four golds in the evening session, McIntosh will bid for her second title, having already claimed the women’s 400m individual medley.
The men’s 200m backstroke will see a new champion crowned, with Hubert Kos, the Hungarian young gun trained by Michael Phelps’s former coach Bob Bowman, the top seed in an open field.
American Kate Douglass is top seed in the women’s 200m breaststroke final and will try to foil Tatjana Smith’s bid to sweep the breaststroke events and cement her standing as South Africa’s most decorated athlete.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Additional reporting by Rohith Nair, Alan Baldwin and Steve Keating; Editing by Toby Davis)
Comments