In its most competitive expression, swimming is a sport defined by its intergenerational character. A single event can bring together teenagers who have not started, or barely started, high school, 14, 15 and 16-year-old stars – Michael Phelps, Sarah Sjostrom, Katie Ledecky or Summer McIntosh – who break world records or achieve Olympic medals against rivals who keep the competitive fire burning for more than 30 years. The World Championships that conclude today in Fukuoka express the breadth of this generational arc and also the devastating dynamics of swimming, which no one expects.
Swimmers who seemed invincible, destined to make history, turn off without the slightest warning and no one knows if they will recover the lost magic. This is the case of David Popovici, the precocious Romanian phenom who last year broke the world record in the 100m freestyle, but who will leave these World Cups vulnerable and without medals, so attention is suddenly drifting to other names : the Frenchman Léon Marchand (20 years old), the Australian Mollie O'Callaghan (19) and the Canadian McIntosh (17).
It's been a week of great records, both for the value of the records and for the names disappearing from the headlines. Marchand (400 meter freestyle) and O'Callaghan (200 meter freestyle) replace Michael Phelps and Federica Pellegrini, authors of brutal marks at the dawn and emergence of polyurethane swimsuits. In 2009, a hundred world records were broken in a bazaar where it was not known what was more important: the swimmer or the plastic he wore in the water. Several marks from that time remain, some of them impossible to attack at the moment, as is the case with the record of the Chinese Zige Liu in the 200 butterfly (2.01.81 minutes). It has been 14 years since then and it will be a few more until it is demolished.
The World Championships in Fukuoka have the merit of anticipating an exceptional week of swimming at the next Paris Games. A rising new generation will face the old guard that refuses to decline. The Swede Sjostrom, who will be 30 years old in August, broke the 50 meter freestyle world record yesterday and shows no sign of decline. Although beaten in the 400m freestyle, American Ledecky won the 800m and 1,500m with her usual authority, 11 years after bursting onto the international scene with victory over Mireia Belmonte in the final London Olympic
These World Cups have offered a full menu of perceptions. Australia has a sensational women's team and a more than competent men's team; the United States has a very wide group of swimmers, but they do not finish because they are star orphans, except for Ledecky; in China a very powerful generation emerges in the short tests; Italy has gone down a couple of steps; Japan has disappointed again and France has found what it needed for the Paris Games: the world's most impressive swimmer, Léon Marchand.
For the French, Marchand will be much more than the great swimmer of the moment in the coming months. He is a gift from heaven, a champion who transcends the narrow margins of popularity of swimming, a sport that tends to emphasize its presence in the Olympic Games. A year away from Paris 2024, Marchand is the closest version of Michael Phelps, a swimmer of rarely seen versatility, fueled by an insatiable competitive hunger and fueled by a narrative that connects him to Phelps through his coach, Bob Bowman, the man who mentored the legendary US swimmer's career and now coaches the young Frenchman at Arizona State University. Léon Marchand is identified by his world records, the convenient story of the new Phelps in sight and the Olympic Games at home. It will be the national emblem in Paris 2024.
