Léon Marchand has broken the men's 200m individual medley world record. The 23-year-old from Toulouse touched the wall in 1:52.69. He set the new mark at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
A semi-final swim rewrites the medley record
The record did not come in the final, as many expected. It arrived in a semi-final heat on 30 July, with Marchand racing in Lane 4. That same morning he had gone through the heats in a slow 1:57.63, saving his best for the night.
In the evening he chose to chase the record rather than rest his legs for the final. He went out with the leaders on the butterfly, then pulled away on the backstroke and pushed hard on the breaststroke. The crowd in the arena roared as he touched a full 1.31 seconds under the old mark.
Lochte's 14-year mark falls by over a second
Ryan Lochte of the United States had held the old record of 1:54.00 for years. He set it at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai. No other swimmer had come close in the 14 years since.
The record came soon after a long rest. Marchand took a break after Paris 2024 and returned to racing only in May 2025. At those home Games he won four individual golds and left as the most decorated athlete of the meet.
“What's crazy is that it's a whole second… and it's still hard to believe,” Marchand told reporters. “A 1:52 on the 200m — that's insane.”
The next night he returned and won gold in 1:53.68, the second-fastest time in history, ahead of Shaine Casas and Hubert Kos. It was already his second long-standing medley record at a Worlds. In 2023 he had broken Michael Phelps's 400m mark in Fukuoka.