World record holder Leon Marchand stormed to the 400 meters individual medley gold at his home Paris Olympics on Sunday to send fans into delirium at La Defense Arena and affirm himself as one of the rarest of swimming talents.
The 22-year-old, nicknamed the "French Michael Phelps," carried the expectations of a nation into his first event but he simply crushed his rivals in a swim of four minutes and 2.95 seconds that broke the Olympic record and flirted with his own world record mark.
It was not so much a contest as a coronation for Marchand, with Japan's silver medalist Tomoyuki Matsushita and bronze-winning American Carson Foster never threatening the young Frenchman as he became his nation's first Olympic champion in an individual medley event.