New Delhi: There is nothing quite like a home hero. Super hero is more like it. “Le Roi Leon” (French for The King Leon), the fan who held up the poster was a few rungs higher and back at the raucous La Defense Arena on Wednesday night. The man of the moment, and surely for years to come in French and swimming history, spotted it as he finished a set of hand-tapping with fans pushing against the rail.

He looked up and beamed a smile, waving, an expression all of France and a global audience have warmed up to. Leon Marchand, 22, France’s poster boy in the build-up to the Paris Games is already an icon in this Olympics, securing three gold medals so far in five days of swimming competitions.

Marchand, dubbed the ‘French Michael Phelps’ – for one, Bob Bowman, coach of the greatest Olympian, has coached him since the then French junior talent with an appetite for the medley like his 23-gold pupil mailed him – had already been anointed “Shin-Kaibutsu” (New Monster) by the Japanese after the Toulouse-born dominated the Fukuoka worlds last year. So, Kaibutsu? That is what they called Phelps when he was utterly dominant.

On Wednesday night, Marchand did something which even Phelps didn’t achieve. And something that had not been pulled off since the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Win two events in a session, and that too as varied as the butterfly and breaststroke. With Olympic records in both.

Marchand became the first swimmer to complete the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke double, barely two hours apart. In the first race, he surged past Hungary’s defending champion and world record holder Kristof Milak in the last lap. The medal ceremony done, Marchand quickly left to cool down and prepare for what few felt would be possible.

In the breaststroke final, he led from start to finish, and with fans yelling in support at the packed 30,000 capacity arena built at a rugby stadium, he was well clear as he gave Australia’s Zac Stubblety-Cook, the defending champion and former world record holder, no chance of catching up. Marchand thrashed the water in triumph as the crowd went berserk.

Bowman, who coached Marchand at the Arizona State University before the Frenchman followed him when he shifted to Austin, Texas, has compared him to former great, Ian Thorpe. Like the Aussie, nicknamed “Thorpedo”, the 58-year-old coach has been quoted as saying that Marchand is “built like a torpedo” because his “hips and shoulders are the same width”, causing little drag.

“I’m so proud of him... I don’t know that I’ve ever seen somebody win two individual events (in the same session). Tonight was amazing, he’ll never forget it,” Bowman told reporters. “Quite honestly, this whole meet is about me fulfilling a promise I made to a kid three years ago, and that I could come through and deliver because not only was it a challenge for him, it was a huge challenge for me.

“So, to put it together and see it come to fruition, it’s incredibly satisfying.”

Both Marchand’s parents are swimming Olympians. Mother Celine Bonnet competed in 1992 Barcelona and father Xavier at 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney. So all-consuming has been the youngster’s march at the Games – he already has three gold medals after expectedly claiming the 400m individual medley – that action at the fencing hall was paused as fans erupted cheering their swimming hero.

Katie Ledecky

The American swimming icon showed at 27 and in her fourth Olympics that she still is at the top of her game as she tied one of swimming’s great records. Ledecky put up a dominant performance to win the gruelling 1,500m freestyle gold medal, taking her career Olympic medal haul to 12 – she equalled fellow Americans Dara Torres, Natalie Coughlin and Jenny Thompson for the most won by a female swimmer.

Ledecky won her first gold at 2012 London as a 15-year-old and was delighted after snapped up her eighth. “It’s not easy. It doesn’t get any easier, so I do try to enjoy it each year and there’s different perspective that I have different years and different challenges that you face each year,” she said after the victory on Wednesday night.

Ledecky is not done in Paris with the 4x200 freestyle relay up next on Thursday night and should fetch her the record medal number 13.

Finally a world record

The carping over the swimming pool not producing a world record – 2016 Rio saw eight and 2021 Tokyo six world marks – hit a pause as China’s Pan Zhanle produced an astonishing 100m freestyle swim to win by over one second.

Pan won China’s first swimming gold medal of these Games, clocking 46.40 seconds to better his own world mark and leave Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, the 2016 Rio champion, 1.08 seconds – a full body length – behind.

“I was very surprised that I broke the record. It was a magical moment,” said Pan, who briefly climbed on to the lane barrier to pose flexing his biceps after squeezing into the final of the blue riband event by just 0.06 seconds.

Doping claims had engulfed Chinese swimming in the build-up to the Paris Olympics, and Pan alleged Chalmers had snubbed him after the race. The Chinese fans took to the social media to defend their swimmer.

Global swimming was thrown into uproar in April when the New York Times reported that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ) at a domestic competition in late 2020 and early 2021 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Pan was not named in the report and Chinese officials’ explanation that the positive tests were the result of food contamination was accepted by the World Anti Doping Agency, which has led to the US anti-doping agency to accuse the global body of a cover-up.

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