Leon Marchand Headed To Australia To Train Under Dean Boxall In January

The world’s best male swimmer is headed Down Under to experience a new training environment in 2025.

Leon Marchand announced his plans to head to Australia while speaking to reporters on Thursday from Réunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean where he’s attending a meet in Saint-Denis.

The 22-year-old said he’ll head to Australia in January for two or three months to train with Dean Boxall, the head coach of the Brisbane-based St. Peters Western club that put a staggering 10 swimmers on the 2024 Australian Olympic team.

When asked why he made the decision to train in Australia, Marchand said:

“To breathe, to see something else. I spoke with my coach, he thought it was good to see another way of training. It’s the right time, I have four years to prepare for Los Angeles, I have time, I’m going to be able to surf and enjoy Australia.”

Marchand said once he returns, he’ll rejoin Bob Bowman at the University of Texas.

Coming off his dominant performance at the Olympics in Paris, winning four gold medals and adding a relay bronze racing on home soil, Marchand took some time off training before getting back in the pool in mid-September.

He began working with his former coach in Toulouse, France, Nicolas Castel, and did a few local meets before taking on the World Cup circuit in the fall.

Marchand was a dominant force at the World Cup, sweeping the men’s 100, 200 and 400 IM at all three legs of the series in Shanghai, Incheon and Singapore. At the final stop in Singapore, he broke the world record in the men’s 200 IM (1:48.88), lowering Ryan Lochte‘s mark from 2012 (1:49.63).

That resulted in Marchand winning the men’s overall series title, walking away with a $174,000 payday.

At the end of November, Marchand announced he was withdrawing from the Short Course World Championships in Budapest, citing exhaustion from a busy year in and out of the pool.

While working with Boxall in Brisbane, Marchand will be able to train alongside the likes of Ariarne Titmus, Mollie O’Callaghan, Elijah Winnington and Shayna Jack, to name a few. Marchand mentioned while speaking to the media that he plans on putting a little more focus on freestyle, which all of the aforementioned names are world-class in.

Along with Titmus, O’Callaghan, Winnington and Jack, Boxall landed Brianna Throssell, Kai Taylor, Jack Cartwright, Jamie Perkins, Jaclyn Barclay and Jenna Forrester on the 2024 Australian Olympic team.