Records that stand for more than a decade are supposed to fall by the slimmest of margins, a swim of a lifetime resulting in a touch of the wall just faster than the star of a past era.
They're not supposed to get crushed by more than a second. And even the man who just did that, French superstar Leon Marchand, knows it.
Marchand shattered Ryan Lochte's 200-meter individual medley world record on Wednesday. Swimming at the world championships in Singapore, Marchand swam a 1:52.61. Lochte's record had stood since 2011 at 1:54.00.
This wasn't even the finals, either. Marchand swam that fast in the semifinals. The 200 IM final is on Thursday, and there's a chance Marchand could go faster.
"What's crazy is that it's a whole second -- and it's still hard to believe," Marchand told the Associated Press. "1:52 on the 200 meters -- that's insane."
That sounds like a quote someone else would give about how impressive Marchand was. But it's himself, blown away even by what his own body did.
Marchand won four Olympic gold medals last summer in Paris, but he's swimming just the 200 IM and 400 IM in Singapore.
The 400 IM final is on Sunday. He already holds the world record in that (4:02.50), which he set at the 2023 worlds in Japan.
The AP writes that that record "seems likely to go."
Marchand told the AP he's happy with his decision to swim a lighter schedule than he did at the Olympics.
He felt like his semifinal was swum just the way he wanted to.
"In the end I went out hard from the start," Marchand said. "But I stayed super-relaxed. I didn't make many mistakes. I didn't realize I was going that fast, but I gave it absolutely everything. Arms at full speed all the way to the wall. At that point I wasn't even thinking about technique anymore."
And with that great swim, Marchand now holds both IM world records, with chances the rest of the week to bring them even lower.
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