{"id":461820,"date":"2025-07-30T20:32:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T20:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=461820"},"modified":"2025-07-30T23:15:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T23:15:54","slug":"unbelievable-superstar-obliterates-world-record-in-a-semi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=461820","title":{"rendered":"'Unbelievable': Superstar obliterates world record in a semi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leon Marchand broke the world record in the men's 200-metre individual medley on Wednesday night at the swimming<\/a> world championships in Singapore, clocking one minute, 52.69 seconds to surpass the 1:54.00 set in 2011 by American Ryan Lochte.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman set the mark swimming in the semi-finals and, in theory, could break it again in Thursday night's final.<\/p>\n

Marchand won four Olympic gold medals a year ago in Paris, but he's swimming only the 200m and 400m individual medleys, and relays, in Singapore.<\/p>\n

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Planning the lighter schedule in what he calls a "transition year" keeps him fresh to chase the world marks.<\/p>\n

Marchand didn't just break the 14-year-old record \u2014 he annihilated it.<\/p>\n

"What's crazy is that it's a whole second \u2014 and it's still hard to believe," Marchand said.<\/p>\n

"1:52 on the 200 metres \u2014 that's insane."<\/p>\n

Watch the World Aquatics Championships live and free on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Leon<\/p>\n

Marchand left the swimming world mind-blown, Nine's commentators included.<\/p>\n

\ufeff"It's a world record like none we've ever seen!" Mat Thompson said.<\/p>\n

"Wow," \ufeffIan Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

"That is unbelievable,"\ufeff added Ariarne Titmus.<\/p>\n

Marchand will swim the 400m IM on Sunday, the final day of the world championships.<\/p>\n

He holds that record having posted 4:02.50 at the 2023 world championships in Fukuoka. And it seems likely to go.<\/p>\n

"Today I felt really good before the race," he said. "In the water, I felt light, I was taking in a lot of water and technically everything felt clean."<\/p>\n

Asked about swimming a lighter schedule he replied in an understatement: "It was probably the right decision."<\/p>\n

\"O'Callaghan<\/p>\n

Marchand was about 1.8 seconds under the world record after 150 metres and powered home with the final freestyle leg.<\/p>\n

Though this race did not yield a world title \u2014 that will come on Thursday night in the final \u2014 it did win Marchand a check for $30,000 (A$46,000).<\/p>\n

"In the end I went out hard from the start," he said.<\/p>\n

"But I stayed super-relaxed. I didn't make many mistakes. I didn't realise 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."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leon Marchand broke the world record in the men's 200-metre individual medley on Wednesday night at the swimming world championships in Singapore, clocking one minute, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":461822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=461820"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461825,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461820\/revisions\/461825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/461822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=461820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=461820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=461820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}