“I knew it was possible for me to do, but just finish those races, maybe not win them. I had never known that [was possible].” Well, to say the least, the 22-year-old French swimmer has done something that will go down in the history of France. The World Record and now the Olympic Record holder, Leon Marchand, did not have any medals in the Olympics before Paris. But now he has five Olympic medals, four of them being gold!

The fans are going gaga over this historic feat of the Frenchman, who not only broke Michael Phelps‘ longstanding record of 1:54.23 in 200-meter, with 1:54:06 but also ended the 12-year drought for French men’s swimming and launched a gold medal relay for himself. The French star left no stone unturned, and undoubtedly he’ll be remembered as one of the biggest stars of the Summer Games in his home country.

The champion was in the spotlight not only for winning golds and breaking records but for the fact that two of his golds came just in two hours of gap. Marchand started with the men’s 200m butterfly and then went on to the men’s 200m breaststroke in just a short time. Well, no one would ever doubt that Leon Marchand is the pupil of Bob Bowman, former coach to the GOAT Michael Phelps.

What is the relationship like, between the duo?

Bob Bowman started training the present-day hero of France, Leon Marchand, back in 2021, when the latter moved to Arizona to study computer science at the Arizona State University. “I sent an email to Arizona State and it was Bob Bowman (who coached Michael Phelps throughout his career) who answered me. It was really cool. It was weird for me but it was nice.” Six months prior to his decision to relocate to the US, Leon Marchand began reaching out to coaches and universities, eager to secure a top-notch institution and mentor.

The duo first met at the Tokyo Olympics, and the coach has only one thing to say: “We hugged right away like we had known each other forever.” In a recent interview with Today, Leon Marchand revealed how Bob Bowman replied to his mail in just a short span of 5 minutes. “I send this e-mail and he responded like five minutes later. He was excited. I didn’t sleep well that night. I was already gone.” Well obviously he could not sleep well that night considering that Bob Bowman replied to his email within 5 minutes of sending it and to now be training under him and winning laurels for his country; his story is one for the ages!

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As the saying goes, ‘Every rose has its thorn.’ Leon also faced a challenge after winning the four gold medals at the Paris Olympics. But what challenge could he possibly face after winning?

What challenge did Leon Marchand face?

Leon Marchand was one of the athletes who was permitted by the French Swimming Federation to sleep at the hotel amid the cardboard beds breakout. While the champion decided to rest at the hotel after winning and swum four times in a day, the WADA and CHINADA doping testers arrived for a scheduled drug test for Marchand. However, the problem began when the 22-year-old swimmer wasn’t in his room or inside the Athletes’ Village. This meant only one thing: that he missed the scheduled drug test, which is taken as a big offense in the Olympic community.

This did not take much time to stir controversy amongst the fans, as they took to Marchand’s X and commented, “You are a doping and cheating fraud.” Meanwhile, others who praised Marchand for the Olympic win before the incident commented, “I take back my previous tweet about Leon Marchand. I hope the next time he pees, he will be caught doping.”

But was Leon Marchand at fault? It turns out that Marchand’s team was already informed about his whereabouts in the ADAMS system before he left for the hotel. It was the testing agents who made an oversight. As it seems the WADA agents didn’t get the update, the swimmer, instead of getting a heavy penalty, stacked up on his golds and went on to win another bronze in the 4x100m medley.