French swimmer breaks Olympic record right before Michael Phelps' eyes

Michael Phelps attended the 2024 Olympics as a commentator for NBC Olympic (USA), analyzing and evaluating the junior swimming races. Here, he witnessed his previous record being broken.

Michael Phelps (right) congratulates Leon Marchand on winning the 2024 Olympic gold medal

Most spectacularly, in the 400m individual medley event, 22-year-old French athlete Leon Marchand, considered the successor to Michael Phelps, once again affirmed his talent with an overwhelming victory in this event at the 2024 Olympics. Leon Marchand won with a time of 4 minutes 02.95 seconds, breaking the Olympic record and bringing home the first swimming gold medal for the host team France.

Japanese athlete, Tomoyuki Matsushita won silver medal with a time of 4 minutes 08.62 seconds, bronze medal went to athlete Carson Foster (USA) with a time of 4 minutes 08.66 seconds. Thereby, showing the dominance of the French swimmer over the two competitors.

However, Leon Marchand's record is still short of the world record (4 minutes 02.50 seconds) set by himself at the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan in 2023. This achievement then broke the 15-year record held by Michael Phelps since the 2008 Olympics (4 minutes 03.84 seconds).

Leon Marchand's victory was made even more special by the expert observation and analysis of Michael Phelps, when the former American swimmer commented on the race live on NBC Olympic television. Meanwhile, the La Defense Arena was packed with more than 15,000 fans watching the race, extremely excited to support Leon Marchand.

"It's no surprise that the young Frenchman has been compared to Michael Phelps. He is coached by the same American coach, Bob Bowman, who has accompanied the most medal-winning athlete in Olympic history throughout his career.

Marchand has lived up to those incredible expectations, and to the expectations of host country France, with an impressive performance that has made him one of the biggest stars of the Paris Olympics," said Marca (Spain).

Leon Marchand won overwhelmingly against his opponents

Also on the second day of the 2024 Olympic swimming competition, swimmer Torri Huske shocked world record holder Gretchen Walsh (both from the US) in the women's 100m butterfly event. Huske won the gold medal with a time of 55.59 seconds. Walsh set the world record in this event last June in Indianapolis (USA) with a time of 55.18 seconds, but only finished second and won the silver medal with a time of 55.63 seconds. Chinese athlete Zhang Yufei won the bronze medal with a time of 56.21 seconds.

After the second day of competition in the 2024 Olympic swimming event, the US swimming team regained the top spot with 2 gold medals, equal to Australia, but ranked higher thanks to 3 more silver medals than their opponents' 2 silver medals. The Italian swimming team rose to 3rd place with 1 gold medal (Nicolo Martinenghi, men's 100m breaststroke), equal to Germany and France with 1 gold medal each. The mighty UK swimming team only has 1 silver medal, along with Canada and Japan.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/kinh-ngu-nguoi-phap-pha-ky-luc-olympic-ngay-truoc-mat-michael-phelps-185240729082352498.htm