2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
- Singapore, Singapore
- World Aquatics Championships Arena
- LCM (50m)
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We were treated to one of the most impressive swimming performances of all time tonight in Singapore.
Racing in the semi-finals of the men’s 200m IM, 4-time Olympic champion Leon Marchand of France clocked an otherworldly time of 1:52.69 to take the top seed.
That knocked over a second off American Ryan Lochte‘s longstanding World Record of 1:54.00 established well over a decade ago at the 2011 World Championships.
The amazingly versatile 23-year-old Marchand was ahead of the WR pace from the get-go on butterfly, giving us a glimpse that we were going to see something shockingly special.
Marchand opened in 24.10, behind American Shaine Casas who notched the fastest opener in 23.88.
That was the only lap in which his competitors were close, however, as the Frenchman pulled to the lead with a 28.40 backstroke before firing off a mindbending 32.13 in breaststroke and finally 28.06 on the freestyle leg.
The next-closest competitor this evening was indeed Casas, who put up what would otherwise be an impressive performance of 1:55.13, a new lifetime best, for the 2nd seed, while Duncan Scott of Great Britain earned the 3rd slot in 1:55.51, nearly a British record.
Entering this competition, Marchand’s lifetime best in this 200m IM rested at the 1:54.06 European and Olympic Record he posted en route to gold in front of a home crowd in Paris to become the Olympic gold medalist.
That already rendered him the 2nd-best performer of all time behind Lochte…until tonight, where he elevated himself to an entirely different level.
Split Comparisons
| Marchand’s 1:52.69 World Record | Lochte’s 1:54.00 Former World Record | Marchand’s 1:54.06 Former European Record |
| 24.10 | 24.89 | 24.72 |
| 28.40 | 28.59 | 28.83 |
| 32.13 | 33.03 | 32.36 |
| 28.06 | 27.49 | 28.15 |
All-Time Top Performances 200 IM
- Leon Marchand (FRA), 1:52.69 (2025)
- Ryan Lochte (USA), 1:54.00 (2011)
- Leon Marchand(France), 1:54.06 (2024)
- Ryan Lochte (USA), 1:54.10 (2009)
- Michael Phelps (USA), 1:54.16 (2011)
Tonight’s Top 8 Semi-Finals Performers
While Marchand is the reigning Olympic champion across the 200 IM, the 400 IM, the 200 breast and the 200 fly, he opted to compete in just the IMs here in Singapore. Prior to this competition, Marchand said that his reduced schedule was the plan all along.
In that same interview, the Bob Bowman-trained megastar indicated he was gunning for Lochte’s 200m IM World Record.
When asked, Marchand stated, “You want me to tell you, is that it? Of course, I want to break the 200m medley world record. I don’t know if it’ll happen in five days or years, but my curiosity leads me to take off races around it to swim faster in this 200m medley.”
Additionally, Marchand recognized that his freestyle leg was the one in which he needed to do the most work, given the fact that Lochte’s former world standard held a sizzling split of 27.49.
Ahead of these World Championships, Marchand said of his freestyle, “I tried to improve [freestyle] in training to feel more powerful, more stable, so that my head falls a little less to the side and I hope that will help me.”
RACE VIDEO
Courtesy: NBC Sports
Courtesy: CBC Sports
Still not over that wr..oof
In other news:
@Braden Keith, during the general congress, World Aquatics has announced that Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will host the 3 stops of the Swimming World Cup next year in 2026.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DMrvNbgIlDt/?igsh=MWR2YnUxcHU3dzVu
That’s actually crazy work.
He\ll lower it a bit further in the final. He has the reserves to do it. maybe another 0.5 to 0.9 seconds down.
He said he went for it in the post-race interview
All hail Leon. A few words on Lochte, whose in-pool accomplishments you have to admire.
A lot of super-suit stars declined after 2009, realizing they’d never hit another PR. Lochte was one of the very few to break a WR with a super suit, then do it again without one.
Plus, there was no reason physiologically (or just logically) that he should beat Phelps. But from 2008-11 he kept an INSANE work ethic while Phelps coasted, and sulked. Even when he was number 2 by a huge margin, he kept pushing to get better.
Never a natural breaststroker, Lochte found a way to put up top breaststroke splits within an IM. Much like Leon’s backstroke splits alone make that look… Read more »
We need to have a discussion about this: Marchand went 1:58 at the Tokyo Olympics, then he dropped a whopping 3 seconds a year later at Worlds, then 1:54 flat in Paris and now this. Is it just Bob Bowman’s training?
Tadej Pogačar in cycling has been dominating cycling lately and he’s been questioned by almost anyone online and in forums, while in swimming it seems like every big leap that happens is widely accepted.
After all, France is in top 3 countries worldwide that grants the most TUEs to its athletes after USA and AUS.
I actually think 1:54.0, in a slow pool, with a busy schedule, is roughly equivalent to 1:52.9 under better conditions.
honestly if he had done the 2 fly, he would have probably won it, and still world recorded this race, but maybe not by so much
Lots of (justified) discussion about Marchand’s opening splits, but he also had one of the best last 100s of all time, swimming 1:00.19 for his last two legs.
Out of the PB swims of the top 10 overall performers (I couldn’t quickly find splits for other races), only one swimmer was faster.
It wasn’t Lochte, who closed in 1:00:52 (33.03, 27.49) in his world record race.
It wasn’t Phelps either, who closed in 1:00.49 (33.13, 27.36) in the same race.
In fact, this swimmer was more than a full second ahead of anyone else in the top 10.
The mystery swimmer was:
Eric Shanteau: 59.01 (31.51, 27.50).
Albeit in 2009, but what a swim!
(Repeating the caveat that I… Read more »
Yeah, 2009 swims certainly had some of the most outrageous last 50 or last 100, eg:
Biedermann’s 200 and 400 free, Zhang Lin’s 800
what did ppl think of casas’ backstroke split? i was caught off guard by how much leon excelerated vis a vis casas given they have inverted strengths there.
maybe he just backed off and emphasized his breaststroke split instead?
Casas’ backstroke hasn’t been as great this year. Even he said it at a pro swim meet a few months ago. That’s also probably why they didn’t use him for the mixed medley
Probably didn’t use him in prelims because he had a semi-final that night
i dont think they used him bc he had the 200 im. his sb is still better than anyone has gone at this meet.
and i think he regrets not swimming the 100 back at trials.
I wouldn’t read too much into it.
IM is about strategy where you want to conserve energy, for example: Kaylee McKeown has the slowest backstroke split among top 200IMers.