Leon Marchand 200 IM WORLD RECORD 1:52.69 (Technical Analysis)

Leon Marchand is at it again, destroying world records. This time, it is the 200 individual medley at the World Championships. What I want to do for you guys is break down exactly how he swam so fast, all the different things that he's doing to be the greatest swimmer on the planet. Now, I've done other analysis videos on him in the past. Today, we're focusing on this 200 IM that he just did at the young age of 23 years old. He's got a lot of potential still left in the tank. Let's go ahead and look at the lane assignments. This was the semi-final of the 200 IM. This wasn't even the final. Tomorrow, he might break the world record again. He qualified in a 1.57, which is pretty slow considering he's been so much faster. So if you're not familiar with how the Olympics work or at the World Championships, you go prelims in the morning, finals at night, or semi-final at night, and then the finals the following day. So let's see what he can do later on. Now, at the very beginning of the race, this is just in the middle of the first 50-meter butterfly. This is Shane Cassis right there from America in the lane next to him. He pushed the pace. Both of these guys were out flying. You can see Marchand right there. So as you head into the first wall, take a look at this. Shane Cassis actually has the lead followed by Marchand. It's showing a 0.7-meter difference. I don't think he's actually that far behind. He's just a little bit behind. And when you look at the splits, Shane Cassis went out in a 23.8. That is unbelievable. And Marchand was out in a 24.2. That is actually his fastest 50-meter butterfly of all time. I'm sure if he sprinted it, he could probably go faster. But wow, that is a lot of speed to take it out. Now let's see how they hang on into the backstroke. And this is the prior world record holder Ryan Lochte's best split. It's the backstroke. So I just want to go back real quick. Take a look at this split right here. This is the 50-butterfly. Shane Cassis has the lead. But on the very first stroke, Leon Marchand is actually able to pull ahead of Cassis. This is Cassis right here. And you can see they're now at 25 meters. And Marchand has already extended the lead about a meter because his underwater dolphin kick is so impressive. He is impressive on all the walls, all the strokes. At the end, I'm going to go through all the different splits so you can compare how he did compared to Ryan Lochte. And as we head into the turn, I mean, look at this. Wow. He is out over almost a full second ahead of the world record pace. I mean, 52.5 is flying to give you an idea of just how fast that is. Remember, Ryan Lochte's best stroke was backstroke. He is the prior world record holder. And Marchand at only 100 meters in is almost a full second faster. Also, to put in context how fast 0.98 under the world record split at the 100 is. Remember this. Last year at the Paris Olympics, Penzhan Li of China, he broke the world record in the 100 freestyle by 0.4. And that caused so much drama. And that was only half a second in 100. How about 0.98 in 100? That is what Leon Marchand is doing. Now, let's look at his breaststroke. Why did he destroy this record? He already had a fast breaststroke split. I think this is the biggest differential between him and Ryan Lochte in the 200 IM. And it was the breaststroke. Look at this body position. His hands are driving forward. Now, you might see a top swimmer like Leon Marchand swimming breaststroke and they look like they're coming really, really high out of the water. You see this similarity with him and Adam Peaty. Both swimmers incredible at breaststroke. Adam Peaty has the speed. Marchand has the endurance and the capacity in the breaststroke. And they both actually swim the stroke in very different ways. But, you know, the thing that is the same for both of them is the timing. So whether you're a beginner swimmer or more advanced and you're watching this and you want to figure out how do I swim top breaststroke like this, pull, kick, glide. You have to think it in your head while you swim, even while you race. The thing that happens very quickly is when the hands extend out to streamline, but it's pull, kick, glide. And the reason why it looks like his whole body is really high out of the water. If you look at a more beginner swimmer, their legs are going to be sinking way underneath the surface. But that's not the case. If we had an underwater camera, we would actually see that his legs are right here underneath the lane line, right under the surface of the water. And that means he's reducing his drag. He's so good at doing this in all of his strokes, especially in the short axis strokes, butterfly and breaststroke. Breaststroke is where everyone's leveled. I mean, look at look at these other swimmers. Look at Duncan Scott and look at Cassis, who had an amazing breaststroke split in this as well. But they're just getting crushed by Leon Marchand. And as you head into the hundred and fifty mark with 50 meters to go. Oh, my God. Almost two seconds ahead of the world records. I mean, just think about that. This is only one hundred and fifty meters in and he's more than half a second, a second and a half ahead of the pace, which means he's more than half a second ahead of world record pace per 50. I mean, this is mind blowing. This is absolutely insane. One of the biggest margins of victory of world record breaking that we've ever seen in swimming. I mean, he took off over a percent off of the record. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Now look at the world record line and look at where he is right now. Also, I want you to pay attention to, yes, look at the phenomenal underwater by Cassis right there next to him. But going into this thing, he had about a body length lead and coming out, he has over a body length lead. And so this was about 13 meters where Leon Marchand was able to come out underwater dolphin kicking. It's why he's so good in the short course version of swimming. Twenty five yard, twenty five meters. And when you extend this to a long course version, you can really appreciate just how good he is underwater and carrying that speed. And at the finish, I mean, all three of these guys had phenomenal swims. I mean, look at these splits. One fifty five point one one fifty five point five. But they look slow to a one fifty two point six nine breaking Ryan Lochte's 14 year world record. Even the great Michael Phelps was never able to eclipse a one fifty four zero. The closest they got, I believe he was one fifty four point two. So Michael Phelps was right there, but he wasn't able to do it. And then when we look at the split, look at the fist bump. I mean, look at this guy. He's got to be pumped up. And you know what's really exciting about a swimmer like Leon Marchand? He's really humble. He's really thin. He has a very narrow profile. He's able to maximize everything that he gets when he pushes off the wall, his streamline, his body line. He's absolutely phenomenal on all of those things. And what's exciting about him, he's only twenty three years young. He's still developing into a man. He's going to put on more muscle. I know he looks cut up and he looks like he's in great shape. He can put on more muscle, which is going to create more power, more agility, more momentum off the wall. Can you imagine his underwaters being even faster than they are right now? That's what's going to happen. It's simple physics. Momentum equals mass times velocity. He's going to increase his mass by a little bit, his power by a little bit. Assuming he can still hold the streamline together, he's going to get even faster and it's going to be even more ridiculous in a short course version of the pool. Now, let's look at the splits. And as you can see here, all time top performances. He has the best performance as of two thousand and twenty five. When I make this video, he might break it in the final. Who knows? Ryan Lochte, two thousand and eleven. And he did. Yes. At the Olympics in Paris, one fifty four oh six. And then look at this split here. Ryan Lochte has been dominating this event. This is definitely this and the 200 backstroke were his best events. And there it is. Michael Phelps. I'm sorry. It was one fifty four point one. I Now let's look at the splits. Wow. Twenty four point one compared to his prior best time. One or twenty four point seven. So he won a full point six faster on the first fifty. I may have said he won twenty four point two on that first first leg earlier in the video. I stand corrected. It was twenty four point one. And then he was twenty eight point four on the backstroke compared to a twenty eight point eight. He dropped point four three just on that. And that's why he broke the world record, guys. It was all in this first one hundred. I mean, his breaststroke is already disgusting, especially when you compare it to Ryan Lochte's thirty three point zero. But if you compare it to what he's done before, it's still faster, but not as faster. And then he got point zero nine faster on the final 50. But I mean, wow. Twenty eight point zero six is still pretty fast when you take it out as hard as he does. And that's one thing I respect about Leon Marchand. Not only he's humble, but he's not afraid to go out after the race to go after his goals, his dreams, and he's able to make it hurt. And that's why he is swimming so, so fast. Now, when you look at his overall top times, I mean, these times are ridiculous. I mean, let's take a look at this. We've got a two or five in the 200 breaststroke that was from the Olympics, a one fifty one in the 200 fly from the Olympics, a one fifty two in the IM, a four or two in the four IM. I mean, what's really fun here is look at this. This was the first 50 split in his 200 IM. And you can see that was done in Singapore. Same day he broke. He went to best times technically in the same event. Now, granted, of course, he would probably go a twenty three and he'd be a lot faster in the hundred butterfly compared to what he did there. But just goes to show he's a very versatile swimmer. So if you're looking to level up your own swimming, the best way to do it is what I call IMX style training, where you're training all the strokes really for the 200 IM or the 400 IM. So even if you don't want to swim a 400 IM, if you train as if you were to compete in the 400 IM, it'll actually help all of your different strokes. Now, if you want to see some things that you probably didn't know about Leon Marchand, you want to make sure you check out this video right over here. I'll see you over there and happy swimming.