2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
- Singapore, Singapore
- World Aquatics Championships Arena
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview Index
- Meet Central
- Live Results
We’re on the eve of the 2025 World Championships taking place in Singapore, with swim enthusiasts around the world anxiously awaiting the action to unfold.
Among the big guns participating in this year’s biggest event outside of the Olympic Games is Frenchman Leon Marchand, with the 23-year-old athlete set to take on the 200mIM and 400m IM.
The Bob Bowman-trained athlete was originally entered in the 200m breast and 200m fly but dropped the events from his repertoire to pare down his schedule to just two individual events.
Speaking at a press conference at OCBC Aquatic Centre ahead of the meet’s kickoff, Marchand said that focusing solely on the IMs was always the plan.
“Actually, it was planned from the start,” said the NCAA champion and 4-time Olympic gold medalist.
“I didn’t do the 200m butterfly at all this year, I did a 200m breaststroke which wasn’t bad but I didn’t feel like it. So I was curious to see what I could do with just the medley. It was the right time to get back into it with that.” (MSN.com)
Marchand raced the 200m breast at the Longhorn Aquatics Elite Invite, the meet at which he earned federation approval to obtain World Championships-worthy qualification times. There in Texas, he notched a time of 2:08.25 to rank 7th in the world and put his hat in the ring for a potential medal before he withdrew from the race for Singapore.
When asked if he is pursuing American Ryan Lochte‘s storied world record of 1:54.00 in the 200m IM from the 2011 World Championships, Marchand was not shy about making his goal known.
“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.”
Marchand’s lifetime best in the 200m IM stands just a hair away from Lochte’s mark, having turned in a monster 1:54.06 Olympic Record and European Record en route to topping the podium in Paris.
When comparing his performance to Lochte’s, Marchand said that he saw freestyle as the difference between the top two performances.
“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.”
Time will be on Marchand’s side here in Singapore, as the megastar who just signed with Nike won’t have the 200m IM, his first event, until Wednesday.
Looking ahead to the race, Marchand stated, “I’ve prepared well over the last few weeks.
“The training camp in Jakarta went very well. It was a very long trip from Austin, and I arrived tired for two or three days.
“Last year, there were World Cups after the Olympics, but this is different. The closest thing to the Games is the World Championships.
Finally, Marchand said he ‘made himself available’ for France’s 4x200m freestyle as he ‘was disappointed he wasn’t able to do it at the Games.’
“It’s a moment of sharing and joy different from individual medals and especially with people I love and I want to fight for them. I am also available for the 4x100m medley.” (MSN.com)
You can read Marchand’s interview in its entirety here.
Additionally, you can read our 200m IM and 400m IM previews here, where we selected Marchand to be the gold medalist in each.
I would love to see any old record taken down.
imagine leon starts wearing nike tech suit🤣🤣
Would love to see Marchand break this record, would also love to see Casas pull off an upset
Lochte had already swam and won the 200 free in 2011 when he got the record btw.
He also had the best pacer in the history of the sport
Who?
MP
He’s not winning the 200 IM
I wonder what he means about trying to make his “head fall[] a little less to the side” on freestyle. Does that mean turning his head less for breaths, dropping his head under the surface after each breath, or something else?
One thing I’ve noticed about his freestyle is that his wrist bends a lot during the catch phase. It looks like he loses some power there.
Bob is tired of seeing Ryan lochte still have that record. He looked like he couldn’t believe it when Leon missed it by .07 last summer
Oh just too many Gold last summer ☀️
He’s been a good 1.5 seconds slower in season than in the past 2 years, and this is the event he historically rarely drops more than 2 seconds in from his best in-season time. It smells more like a 1:54 high than a WR to me this year, but I’d be glad to be proven wrong.