{"id":46,"date":"2024-08-01T06:35:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T06:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/?p=46"},"modified":"2024-08-01T06:35:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T06:35:03","slug":"leon-marchands-double-gold-greatest-ever-michael-phelps-thinks-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/leon-marchands-double-gold-greatest-ever-michael-phelps-thinks-so\/","title":{"rendered":"Leon Marchand’s double gold ‘greatest ever?’ Michael Phelps thinks so"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At 20:42 on Wednesday 31 July, Leon Marchand<\/strong><\/a> touched the wall in the Paris La Defense Arena<\/strong><\/a> pool, capping a day for the ages with his second gold medal of the day \u2014 and third gold in four days \u2014 all won setting new Olympic swimming<\/a> records at Paris 2024<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a couple of hours earlier, the last 20 metres of the men\u2019s 200m butterfly<\/strong> final had had the spectators in raptures. Marchand, still breathing heavily from his last-second dash, allowed himself a subdued celebration before making a quick change for the victory ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chants of \u201cLeon, Leon\u201d greeted his ascent to the podium, thousands of fans sang \u201cLa Marseillaise\u201d along with him and stretched out their hands to receive high fives from the 22-year-old native of Toulouse in southern France. But Marchand did not linger long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For it was one race down, one more to go. At 20:33 he walked out to the pool again, this time to race in the men\u2019s 200m breaststroke<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 15,000 who were in the Paris La Defense Arena and the thousands watching on their TVs around the world, it was a bit of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu: Another victory, another Olympic record, taken from the man swimming in the next lane. The only difference was that this time Marchand let all his emotions out at the finish, smashing the water with his fist before his face broke out into a relieved smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“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]. That\u2019s why I was swimming. I was trying to get that surprise for me,\u201d said Marchand, who on Sunday won the men\u2019s 400m individual medley at Paris 2024<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe double was something I\u2019d been thinking about for quite some time. After the 200m breaststroke, I think I\u2019ve finished the marathon. I\u2019ve done six races in a day and a half, so that\u2019s a lot, and I took advantage of it to enjoy myself at the end of the race and to celebrate because I won two gold medals in two hours, which is pretty incredible for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 20:42 on Wednesday 31 July, Leon Marchand touched the wall in the Paris La Defense Arena pool, capping a day for the ages with his second gold medal of the day \u2014 and third gold in four days \u2014 all won setting new Olympic swimming records at Paris 2024. Just a couple of hours earlier, the last 20 metres of the men\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdemo.redefiningtheweb.com\/rtwdpg-divi-pdf-generator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}