2023 FRENCH ELITE CHAMPIONSHIPS
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Video courtesy of Anne Lepesant.
After Leon Marchand‘s 2nd French national title in as many days, his coach Bob Bowman spoke with the media about his pupil’s progress. Bowman had a lot of insight to offer on a myriad of topics.
200 Free: “This is probably the event that you need the most experience to swim. When Michael was swimming it, I had him swim it every meet. It took him 2 years to be able to do a really good one. Leon has only swum it 4 or 5 times, so he’s getting better and that’s the first time he’s swam it really well. ”
200 Breast: “I thought the timing of his arms and his head at the very end was slightly off… He was very good for about 170, the last 30 meters it got off a little bit. I’m very happy with that, you know he hasn’t shaved and he’s about 50% prepared, so, he’s doing well.”
Preparation for Trials: “He trained very well at altitude and he always does well after that. I’m very happy because he’s not fully prepared for this and he’s got much more he can do in every event. The lactate readings that we have here indicate that he’s not fully (rested), which is very good, but he’s fit, you can see that.”
Coaching the US Team and Leon: “It’s not like I can’t talk to him and I hardly coach him at the meets anyway… I have permission to coach my swimmers to be as fast as they can be. So, if they beat an American swimmer, the Americans should step up. And same the other way around. If Leon can’t beat them, he needs to step up.”
- 0:00 200 Freestyle Race/Technique Analysis
- 0:42 Racing the 200 Free in Fukuoka and Paris
- 1:20 Technique/Timing in the 200 Breast
- 2:01 Altitude Camp Leading into Trials
- 2:30 “This (meet) is sort of like training for him”
- 2:49 Balancing Coaching the US Team and Leon at World Champs
- 3:30 World Record vs Gold Medal
gives me pac 12s vibes
As in “fast as hell but gonna be much faster”? Yeah, I agree.
I hate these statements. Just swim, less talky talk
swimfan006: “I want to know what all these coaches have to say!”
but also
swimfan006: “I don’t like what he says!”
Leon IS swimming, unless you meant you want to see Bowman in the water too.
Actually I would very much like to see that
Bowman is a traitor coaching the frenchie. Can’t wait for Carson to beat him like a drum.
At leasst wait until foreigners coached by Bowman win more medals than the Americans he has coached, okay?
Oh hush. Swimming is an international community and without the summer Phelps spent in Grant Hackett’s freestyle group in Australia, he wouldn’t have dominated the 200 free in Beijing the way he did.
For two weeks every 4 years, the country you come from matters. Every other week of the Olympiad, it’s about helping anyone with talent push the sport to the highest level it can reach.
Even during the Olympics, I would rather see a faster time than an American winning in a slower time. Ideally an American wins in a faster time but obviously that can’t happen for every event.
Like in the W400 free, I want Ledecky to win sure, but I want it to be because she goes hella fast and breaks the world record, not because Titmus and McIntosh flop. McIntosh winning with a 3:55 would be way more exciting than Ledecky winning with a 3:57
👍
Nope
Knowing the type of people in this forum it might sound crazy but in life I have high regards for loyalty and respect. If a person uses a team, person, company, school with anything in life then they should show respect and honor that community by representing them. I don’t have it me to be disrespectful. I would never train for someone or use a school or countries facilities for my nearly all my training and then compete against that country. It’s hugely disrespectful. Meaning Leon or anyone that trains here in US or any US person that trains 90 percent overseas should then compete against that country.
People can help each other and such like that but show… Read more »
Consensus expectation of chances of Marchand breaking the 400IM WR probably went from 100% after the 200breast, 95% after the 200free down to like… 40% after today’s swim. I still wouldn’t be surprised if he went 1:54high tomorrow, but 4:05 or 4:06 seem more likely for the 400IM. It’s certainly possible that bowman gave Marchand a week of rest going into the 200breast and is now adding workouts in between workouts now
You think it’s possibly that Bowman is having Marchand do practices between sessions?
Reminds me of when prime luca urlando said he did 6k meters two days before swimming a 1:53 2fly
That 43 hundo back was prime
Makes no sense to do it that way
Great
Interesting that Bowman says WRs are more important than gold medals because they mean you beat “everyone ever” rather than just for “one day.” I think I recall Phelps saying gold medals are more important because you can never lose them. But maybe it was a different swimmer who said that?
I have two schools of thought:
-It might be possible that Phelps faced more competition even at his prime than Marchand is right now. It’s very unlikely that someone beats Marchand in either IM, but Phelps faced a lot of competition both domestically and internationally in the 100 fly, 2IM, 4IM and 2 free (going to consider the 200 fly as his locked up event). Maybe he was more than happy to just walk away with a win.
-Phelps was a bit more versatile than Marchand is (at least how it stands right now with world rankings across different events). Because he had his eggs in so many different baskets, I guess it is tough to hope and/or expect a… Read more »
I would say Marchand’s only lock is the 400IM. The field is close to him in the 200IM, he is objectively not the favourite in either the 200 breast or the 200 fly, his 100s are obscure at this point, and he has basically no medal chance in the 200 free.
Edit: By that I mean he should have even more of a “happy to even medal” mentality right now, as he is – unlike Phelps – not the favourite in at least half of his potential events,
I think you forget to how that during phelp’s time when he was fully training 2003 to 2009 there was lots of races where he was a fully body length or more over his competitors in races. There was some very close races of course but lots of races where 2nd and 3rd finishers weren’t even close.
I think there is a quantity aspect to them too, since at least to me, winning the difference between winning 1 gold vs many golds in the same event is a lot bigger than breaking 1 WR vs breaking the WR in the same event multiple times
I don’t really get that reasoning. Sure, you never lose a gold medal, but you are only the reigning Olympic champion for four years and then someone else takes the title. A former world record holder will always have been “the best” at a point in time, just like an Olympic champion will have won gold at a point in time, but they eventually aren’t anymore.
I personally don’t see one above the other. In order to achieve everything you can, you need both. And the comparison is hard. There are a lot of Olympic golds that just happened to have weak fields, so I couldn’t ever say with certainty that every Olympic gold is better than every word record.… Read more »
One reason to doubt that Phelps really felt this way is that he surely would’ve chosen his 200IM gold in Rio over a WR semi-final followed by a loss in the final to someone who swam slower than the WR.
I’ve read where athletes are referred to as ”former world-record holders.” Never read where an athlete is referred to as a ”former Olympic gold medalist.”
How many times does bro need to swim a ridiculously fast time a month or so before a major meet only to then drop an ever larger chunk of time at said major meet for y’all to believe he can swim this fast unshaved and unrested. Why would he be that rested for this meet… it isn’t a hard task for him to qualify for worlds. And think about how much time he dropped in short course this year already. He’s bound to be swimming faster at this time this year than he was last year. He’s just getting better and better every time he swims. Worlds will roll around, he’ll swim significantly faster than french trials, and everyone will… Read more »
Bob is delusional
I think you dislike French people.
Yes
insightful self reflection