What Did We Learn From Leon Marchand’s Return To Competition?

Courtesy: Dominique Hérailh

In his latest interview with L’Equipe, Leon Marchand declared, “I didn’t know where I stood; now I know.” He added, “Now it’s more concrete. I’m a long way from my best times of last year, but at least I know what I need to work on…”

The areas he mentioned at the time concern:

• “Reworking” the four strokes
• Improving his underwaters (we can only agree with this observation, based on race images)
• Working on “Tempo”

Let’s take a look at the data collected in Fort Lauderdale and that of the Paris Olympics and see what objective analysis can be made. As the Paris data are much more comprehensive than the Fort Lauderdale data, only certain parameters can be compared. Others, such as amplitude and frequency, cannot be taken into account.

General Data

The first observation concerns the significant difference, in percentage terms, between the 200 IM and 400 IM times. For the former, the difference was only 2.81% more time in the final in Fort Lauderdale than in Paris, whereas for the 400 IM, the difference reached 4.49%. Clearly, Marchand lacked the stamina to compete at his usual level over 400 meters. Analysis of this race shows that other parameters had an influence on the result, as we shall see later.

200 IM Breakdown

Let’s start with the times achieved in the various splits. On butterfly, similar to backstroke, there was only a limited deterioration in performance. The biggest time loss was on breaststroke, which has been Marchand’s strong point until now. The freestyle did not reach the level that specific training in Australia under Dean Boxall would have predicted.

The second graph shows the differences more clearly when expressed as a percentage.

Indeed, while the gap over the entire race was 2.11% in the heats, we can see that the gaps in the fly and back were smaller, while on breast and, to a lesser extent, free, the gaps were larger.

The same was true of the finals: although the overall gap was 2.81%, Marchand lost the most time in the breaststroke.

In this event, we can only agree with Marchand’s analysis of his desire to rework the four strokes. It would seem that the emphasis placed on freestyle during his stay in Australia may have been to the detriment of breaststroke.

Faced with a competitor like Shaine Casas, who excels in all four strokes, Marchand could only lose out.

400 IM Breakdown

Let’s start with the times achieved in the various splits. The gaps are very wide in all the swims, with the exception of the last 100 meters of freestyle, where Marchand achieved the feat of going faster in the final in Fort Lauderdale than in Paris.

Expressed as percentages, the data can be used to identify possible explanations for Marchand’s performance over this distance.

It’s in the final that the lessons are most interesting to analyze. Although Marchand’s finishing time in Fort Lauderdale was 4.49% slower than in Paris, his first 200 meters were relatively slow compared to his last 100, which were faster than Paris. This proves that he saved himself a little too much early in the race. You could say that his race was poorly constructed. My hypothesis is that, knowing Bobby Finke‘s formidable finishing ability, Marchand wanted to save his strength for the last 50 meters. But you can’t play with the world record-holder in the 1500 metres. Either you have enough of a lead to counter his comeback, or you attempt a freestyle duel and stand a good chance of losing.

The following graph shows a different breakdown of Marchand’s race in Fort Lauderdale and Paris. A third curve shows what a symmetrical race to Paris would have looked like, using Marchand’s race time in Fort Lauderdale as a reference. This graph simply shows the imbalance between each stroke.

In conclusion, we can only agree with Marchand’s analysis of his areas for improvement.

In my opinion, he has the most work to do on the breaststroke, as well as on his underwaters.

There are still six weeks to go before the French Championships, which will be the only event to achieve the qualifying times for Worlds.

With the determination that Marchand has always shown, and with guidance provided by Bob Bowman, there’s a reasonable hope that he’ll get back on track and become the Marchand we knew in years gone by.