A Swimming World Record – Creating History

In Jun 2022, I was at the Duna Arena in Budapest, Hungary watching the Finals of the Swimming World Championship.

One of the races that I witnessed was the Men’s 400m Individual Medley. In this, each swimmer swims 100m with these four strokes in the following sequence – butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. Michael Phelps holds the World Record in this. Of all of Phelps’s records, this one is considered untouchable. It is the oldest swimming record in any distance, never threatened since Beijing, 2008. And this is the history of that record:

Time	Name	Year
4:11.09	Michael Phelps	2002
4:10.73	Michael Phelps	2003
4:09.09	Michael Phelps	2003
4:08.41	Michael Phelps	2004
4:08.26	Michael Phelps	2004
4:06.22	Michael Phelps	2007
4:05.25	Michael Phelps	2008
4:03.84	Michael Phelps	2008

Swimming is a sport where advances in technology aids and training methods result in records being shattered regularly. Swimmers work on maximizing propulsion while minimizing drag. Their body anatomy plays an important role in this. Phelps has long arms, large palms, short legs, large feet, long torso, double jointed ankles, hyper-jointed chest, double joined elbows, high lung capacity, long wingspan. This is the ideal body for the butterfly stroke.

The 200m butterfly was his signature event. Yet, today he does not hold any of the top five timings in this event. In fact, he does not hold any records in butterfly anymore as his 100m butterfly record was also broken. But in the Men’s 400m Individual Medley, as recently as 2020, Chase Kalisz won the Olympic Gold with a timing of 4:09.42, more than 5 seconds slower than Phelps in 2008.

And in 2019, Phelps said in an interview, “I sent Bob [Bowman, his longtime coach] a text after the 100 fly record was broken that said, – I swear to God, if my 400 I.M. record gets broken, I’ll meet you in Colorado Springs for training. That one I think is pretty safe for now.”

So the 400m IM (Individual Medley) is special, very special.

Let us plunge. On your mark, get set, GO!

Somewhere past the 270m mark, are the first signs of the impending triumph. In another 2m, which at Leon’s scorching pace is just a bit more than a second, there is a collective gasp in the Duna Arena. And then, we hold our breaths, as if along with Leon we too are in the water, before coming up for air.

“Are you also seeing what I am seeing?” each of us wanting to ask. I am wondering if this is an optical illusion, whether the angle makes Leon seem faster than he actually is. But from my vantage seat, Row 1, right in the middle of the pool’s length, I have a clear view of Leon in Lane 4.

There is no scope for an optical illusion here. It would violate a law of physics. Albeit, today everything is possible, even the universe bending its own laws. The one Hungarian swimmer in Lane 2 swimming in front of his home crowd is practically forgotten. 

In another 10m, Leon is tearing away from the pack. At 300m, he touches the wall and turns. Our eyes turn to the scoreboard. It flashes WR -1.11. That is 1.11 seconds ahead of the World Record. To break it, in the last 100m, Leon must still swim at a blistering pace. His competitors are way behind. The gold seems to be his for the taking but what about the World Record? Leon reaches the other end; the flip turn at 350m is good. The scoreboard flashes WR -0.3. We are all up on our feet.

In the final lap, he is still 0.3 seconds inside the world record. He does not know this but he gives it his all. The last few meters and he touches the wall. All eyes to the scoreboard. Leon clocks 4:04.28. Phelps’s record still stands at 4:03.84. But the whole arena erupts at having witnessed the coming of age of Leon Marchand of France. He is 20 years old and this is his first event in the long course senior World Championship. Till now, he had been swimming in the juniors. 

The crowd of French spectators in the row behind me goes ecstatic. In the celebrations that follow, one of them accidentally spills his beer. It flows down my back.

Some friends who work with the Hungarian Swim Team have given me a Hungary T shirt. With no Indian swimmer in the fray, I am supporting my friends and sporting that T-shirt. It is soaked. I make my way to the men’s room, take off my T-shirt and wash it in the washbasin. I squeeze out as much water as I can and put it back on, walk to my seat.

A kid comes running and thrusts a pad and a pen in my hand. I smile and ask him how I can help him. He says something in Hungarian.

I bend down, matching the height of the kid. “Sorry, I don’t speak Hungarian. Do you speak English?”

The boy’s father looks at me perplexed and says in English, “He wants your autograph.” 

“Oh, but I am not one of the swimmers here.”

“Were you not in the pool just a while ago?”

“No.”

He looks at my wet T-shirt. And then it strikes me that they have confused me with a Hungarian swimmer, assuming I just stepped out of the pool and wore my Hungary T shirt. And they were surprised that I could not speak Hungarian! I laugh and explain what transpired. 

“My son still thinks you swam here. So you might as well sign,” he laughs. I flip through a few pages and sign with a flourish putting my name along with Caeleb Dressel, Summer McIntosh. Phelps is missing. He is an alien. Leon is missing too. He is turning into an alien and will complete his metamorphosis in time for Paris 2024. 

In the few words that Leon speaks after the event, he is humility personified. “Now I can call myself a good swimmer,” he says. He credits his coaches for this achievement. One of them is Bob Bowman. Chase Kalisz takes bronze. His coach is Bob Bowman. Phelps’s coach – Bob Bowman.

Leon goes to college at Arizona State University (ASU). When he wrote to them before applying, Bowman responded in 15 mins and welcomed him to join. And that day he chose ASU over Stanford and Berkeley.

Something about this still intrigues me. The swim was impressive but my instinct says this was even bigger than what my eyes witnessed. I start checking the incoming news and chance upon a Twitter post in all caps, “LEON MARCHAND JUST WENT 4:04.28 IN THE 400 IM!!!! WHAT JUST HAPPENDED?!?!?!?!

I check out the other tweets from this account. None of the others are in all caps. None carry this ecstatic tone. The poster seems very knowledgeable about swimming. I check the profile. It says Kyle Sockwell, former swimmer at ASU. That is Bob Bowman and Leon’s ASU.

In his post-match comments, Leon says two things that go unnoticed.

Bowman told him to get a good lane for the finals. In these races, there are eight lanes and many swimmers believe that the middle lanes are better as:

a) The water in the side lanes is choppy and increases drag. This is due to the waves from other swimmers and the reflected waves from the pool edge

b) Swimmers perform better when they can see their competitors. From the middle lanes, the peripheral vision allows them to see more of their competition

Which lane a swimmer gets in the finals is decided by how he performs in the heats. The heats were held in the morning, same day as the finals in the evening.

Let us understand the import of Bowman’s statement. Bowman did not tell Leon to get the best lane for the finals. That would require Leon to finish first in the heats to get the coveted Lane 4. Bowman simply told him to get a good lane for the finals.

In other words, Bowman told him something to the effect of, “You don’t have to finish first in the heats. Conserve your energy. But do finish in the top three or four as that will give you a good enough lane for the finals. You don’t need the best lane. You only need a good enough lane to create history.”

Leon nevertheless finished first, clocking 4:09.09, a far cry from his performance in the finals that same evening. So yes, he did conserve his energy and yet was good enough to finish first.

Post his qualification in the heats, Bowman gave Leon just one piece of advice. He told him to swim his fastest ever first 200m in the final. In a 400m race, Bowman told Leon to go all out and beat his personal best in the first 200m! This seemed really counterintuitive and when I read this, I started going deeper.

Let us recall that the individual 400m medley has 4 strokes in the following sequence – butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

Leon’s weakest stroke is the backstroke. His best stroke is the breaststroke. So Bowman told Leon not to fall too far behind the competition in the first 200m which included his weakest stroke, the backstroke. He gave no advice for the last 200m which included Leon’s best stroke, the breaststroke.

So Bowman focused his advice only on neutralizing a disadvantage. Further, he did not burden Leon with many instructions to process before the final. He trusted Leon to get everything else right. In fact, Leon also mentioned that he had a lot going on in his mind between the morning heats and the evening finals. Bowman knew that and therefore gave Leon just one simple instruction.

Let us for a moment compare Leon and Phelps. Bowman coached both. But the similarities end there. Leon’s fastest stroke is the breaststroke; Phelps’s weakest stroke was the breaststroke.

Phelps was so good in the other strokes; he could afford being not so great in breast stroke.

Leon is so good in the breaststroke; he can afford being not so great (relatively) in the other three strokes!

Here are their splits:

Split		Marchand 2022 World Finals	Phelps – 2008 Olympic Finals
100	Butterfly	55.54	54.92
200	Backstroke	1:03.12	1:01.57
300	Breaststroke	1:07.28	1:10.56
400	Freestyle	58.34	56.79
		4:04.28	4:03.84

Leon’s breaststroke is so good that he outpaces Phelps by more than 3 seconds and nearly neutralizes Phelps’s advantage in the other strokes.

Leon’s backstroke is weak by his standards. So how did Bowman address that?

Remember Bowman’s instruction to Leon to clock his personal best in the first 200m. That included the weak backstroke. So he offset this by pacing the race differently. But this carries a risk. What if Leon had tired after the first 200m?

Bowman planned for this too! Remember his morning instruction not to go all out in the prelims but just do well enough for a good lane. And that was reflected in Leon’s heats timing of 4:09.09 compared to his finals timing of 4:04.28.

Further, Leon says he has been swimming at altitude. So Bowman has him training in thinner air at altitude. He also mentioned that he swims a lot but less than he used to. Instead, Bowman has increased the intensity of the sessions. He gets to rest for about 1 min in a 2-hour session!

Bowman knew that going so hard in the first 200m is a risk. But he had been training Leon for such a scenario! He minimized the risk by adapting the training regimen. He knew that for Leon to go for this record, he will have to take a risk somewhere. And he could take this risk, if he had planned and trained Leon for it.

Leon swam 1:03.12 on the backstroke even when going hard. But in the morning heats, he swam the backstroke in 1:02.59. If he could even have kept this time in the finals while keeping the other splits from the evening, he would have clocked 4:03.75 and that is a World Record.

We can only attribute it to variability. It is difficult for a swimmer in the water to know how he is faring. Leon himself admitted that in the finals he hoped to clock 4:06 or 4:07 and had no idea he had 4:04 until he saw the scoreboard.  

Let us look at Leon’s splits compared to Kalisz, who took bronze.

Split		Marchand 2022 World Finals	Kalisz 2022 World Finals
100	Butterfly	55.54	55.93
200	Backstroke	1:03.12	1:03.65
300	Breaststroke	1:07.28	1:07.67
400	Freestyle	58.34	58.65
		4:04.28	4:05.90

How this contrasts with the Leon-Phelps comparison. Leon is a just a little bit better than Kalisz in each stroke, including the backstroke. So while his backstroke is weak compared to Phelps, it is still world class.

Leon is 20 years old and has not reached his peak yet. So we will likely see some improvement in each stroke, particularly in the backstroke where Bowman will iron out any technique issues. And here is a snapshot of how he has improved between 2021 and 2022, particularly in the backstroke!

Split		WORLD CHAMPS 2022 FINAL	FRENCH CHAMPIONSHIPS 2021
100	Butterfly	55.53	56.74
200	Backstroke	01:02.6	01:06.2
300	Breaststroke	01:10.1	01:08.9
400	Freestyle	01:00.8	57.81

In Paris 2024, Leon will have the support of his home crowd. And while that will create additional pressure, Bowman is also an expert on mental preparation.

It is 2024, a special summer evening in Paris. The day’s heat is giving way to a gentle breeze. The city is full of tourists and spectators. Some of them are attending events, some are strolling along the Seine. Some are visiting the Louvre.  They are here to see a famous painting that sits inside a glass case. The expression on her face is an enigma. No one can quite tell whether she is smiling or crying. The tourists leave, the doors of the Louvre close. Somewhere in the city there is a splash in the water. Exactly 4 minutes and 3 seconds after that the lady in the glass case breaks into a full smile.

The crowd goes wild. A Frenchman spills his beer down my T-shirt. I do not rush to wash it. I know there is no water to be found. Today, even the taps in the men’s room are pouring champagne. I pause, I wonder what to do. Then, I simply take it off and join the party. 

P.S. – I wrote this article in Jul 2022. Leon broke the 400m Individual Medley Record earlier than I predicted. He clocked 4:02.50 in Jul 2023.