LAST UPDATE | 23 Jul 2023
LEON MARCHAND HAS smashed Michael Phelps’s last remaining world record, winning the men’s 400 individual medley at swimming’s world championships in Japan.
The Frenchman clocked 4min, 02.50 — more than a second faster than Phelps — to finish ahead of American Carson Foster in 4:06.56 and Japan’s Daiya Seto in 4:09.41.
Phelps’s record of 4:03.84sec had stood since the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was the longest-held world record in swimming.
Marchand, who is coached by Phelps’s former mentor Bob Bowman, swam the second-fastest 400 IM ever at last year’s world championships in Budapest, coming home in 4:04.28.
The Frenchman insisted on Saturday that breaking the record was just “a step in my journey”.
Marchand is expected to be one of the faces of the Paris Olympics next year.
Meanwhile, Ellen Walshe had the swim of her life on the opening night of finals and is now the first Irish swimmer to secure an Olympic Qualification Time for Paris 2024.
Walshe, who entered the semi-finals in 16th place, moved up the rankings finishing fourth in her semi-final and in ninth place overall in a time of 2:10.92. That time wipes over a second off her Irish Record of 2:12.02 and is well inside the Paris 2024 Olympic Qualification Time (OQT) of 2:11.47.
“I’m delighted, I was pretty nervous this morning coming into it and tonight I got the chance to do it again and I was like, just take the opportunity and enjoy it. I went out and it was the easiest swim of my life I think,” Walshe said.
“It was hard this morning because you gave it 100% from the start and you didn’t quite get what you wanted out of it and you think do I have anything left in this and tonight I thought, you have nothing to lose, keep the faith and believe in yourself and I was out in a side lane tonight and I just enjoyed every moment of it.”
Walshe now has a long wait for her return to the pool next Sunday in the 400m individual Medley and 4x1000m Medley Relay, she said ‘I’ll watch the team race, it’s super exciting to be here with big enough team of talented athletes from Ireland, and I think just keep training away, enjoy being here and hopefully get up and race fast next Sunday’
Tomorrow will see individual debuts at the championships from Danielle Hill in the 100m Backstroke, Conor Ferguson in the 100m Backstroke and Mona McSharry in the 100m Breaststroke.
