Paris 2024: Léon Marchand’s entourage wants to do everything to "hide it as long as possible" before the Olympics
There are very symbolic deadlines and that of Wednesday April 17, 2024 is one of them: in exactly 100 days the Paris Olympic Games will begin with the opening ceremony on July 26 and the official start of the competitions the next day, particularly for the swimming. In the Olympic pool at Paris La Défense Arena, there will be one of the big French stars expected: Léon Marchand, already a five-time world champion and who could win several gold medals.
The swimmer has been training in the United States for two and a half years, far from Paris, and the fervor around the Games. If his return to France is not planned until the beginning of June, the Frenchman and his entourage are also learning to manage the wait and the crowds: all eyes will in fact be on him.
“As late and as discreetly as possible“, warns his American coach Bob Bowman. There will therefore be no fuss for Léon Marchand’s return to the country. On the contrary, it will be necessary “hide it as long as possible“, he slips without blinking. The 21-year-old swimmer already knows it: everything has changed.
From the United States, he will therefore go to Toulouse at home, at the beginning of June, just one week before the French championships, in Chartres, qualifiers for the Games. What his parents will take care of: “We’re going to have to limit it, obviously, because the objective is for it to still be cool enough to swim quickly. That’s the only objective. But we’ve never experienced that, so we does the best every time for him and for us“, confides his father, Xavier.
Same line of action for the federation: Léon Marchand must be preserved. “I see a little of the expectations of the people around him, whether in the world of sport or outside, frankly, we have to protect him from that. He will have plenty of time to find out after the Games“, insists Julien Issoulié, the technical director. Especially since, for the moment, the prodigy is not yet qualified for Paris 2024, he must wait until mid-June and the French championships.
