The monstrous billboard bearing the visage of the new lion of swimming was as unmissable as the roars were deafening in Paris a year ago whenever Leon Marchand dived into the pool.
The Toulouse swimmer was the face of a famous Olympics, with the only skyscraper within the Parisian city limits bearing his image well before he created history at the La Defence swimming pool 12 months ago.
Courtesy of a new sponsorship deal with global apparel giant Nike, the swimmer likened to Michael Phelps given his phenomenal deeds in the pool is certain to be among the faces of the next Olympics as well in three years time despite his nationality.
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22-year-old Frenchman storming the Games | 03:43
With Los Angeles to host the Olympics in 2028, and Nike headquartered 1300km up the Pacific coastline in Oregon, “Le Roi Leon” is set to roar in the United States market as well.
An estimated net worth of $US3 million is likely to explode, along with his asking price which La Tribune last year estimated to be between $US1 and $US1.5 million per sponsorship deal, per year.
In a swimming example of passing the baton, Nike has chosen Marchand as the successor to Australia’s queen of the pool Emma McKeon, whose iconic career ended in Paris in 2024.
That the giant settled on Marchand to follow on from the marvellous McKeon is scarcely surprising given his march to superstardom.
Japanese media branded him “Shin-Kaibutsu”, which translates to “The New Monster”, after he claimed the 200m and 400m individual medley golds at the World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka in 2023.
This was a nod to Phelps, who they dubbed “Kaibutsu” when the American legend was at the peak of his fame during his extraordinary career.
Marchand confirmed his standing when thriving under enormous pressure exactly a year ago in Paris, with his deed to win the 200m butterfly and breaststroke double within a couple of hours deemed unworldly given how exhausting both races are considered.
The 23-year-old added the 200m and 400m medleys to his haul in the pool at La Defence during the week to become just the third man to win four individual swimming gold medals at an Olympics.
A year on and he is a sensation once again, slicing through a swimming pool in Singapore like a shark and gobbling up more gold medals while adding to his legend.
Marchand is trained by Phelps’ former coach Bob Bowman in Texas and led home a trifecta of swimmers under the American’s tutelage in the 200m individual medley on Thursday night.
His winning time was a second slower than the stunning new world mark of 1:52.69 he set in the semi-finals, but both times were well below the previous record Ryan Lochte posted in 2011.
“I was going for the title and I was racing my teammates. We’re sharing the podium together. That just shows how good a coach Bowman is at swimming,” Marchand said.
TIMING IT TO PERFECTION
When Marchand was making his mark in Paris last year, he did so wearing a Speedo swimsuit. But the magnificence of his swimming had sponsors salivating.
Omega had its timing right, announcing Marchand as its man in the months prior to Paris and featuring his swim from Fukuoka a year prior when he broke Phelps’s 400m IM record in an advertising campaign.
Phelps was providing analysis on the race for an American broadcaster when he recognised a lap out that his longstanding mark was about to be obliterated, with The Washington Post reporting that as the Frenchman turned for home, the legend said; “Uh oh. It’s gone.”
“We were ready to be there. This is a legend forming,” the Swiss watchmaker’s chief executive Raynald Aeschilmann told Reuters in Paris.
LVMH and Louis Vuitton had made its move even earlier, claiming Marchand’s moniker a year out from the French games, mindful the man who appears to float on water was likely to become a global sensation given his trajectory leading into Paris.
“Sometimes, lightning strikes in a bottle and it did for them,” said Terrence Burns, Olympics sponsorship expert and CEO of the T. Burns Sports Group, said of Marchand mania.
Marchand had earned those sponsorships off the back of his deeds at the World Championships and with his status as a French icon leading into the Paris Games.
Given his youth, he is shaping as a logical candidate for at least the Los Angeles Games and then the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.
Phelps was a freak, collecting 23 Olympics gold medals in five Games stretching from Sydney in 2000 to Rio de Janeiro in 2016 when setting swimming’s equivalent of Mt Everest.
It took a year for Nike to sign its star, but the timing was again right.
Coming just before Singapore’s World Championships, further success in the pool would boost the exposure surrounding the new deal for Nike, which was keen to extrapolate his stardom in swimming to a broader market.
The social media signposting of the announcement saw Marchand featuring alongside compatriots Kylian Mbappe, the French captain and Real Madrid star, and Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs No.1 draft pick in 2023.
Football is a national pastime in France. Basketball is massive as well. Marchand is putting the sizzle in swimsuits for his new company.
The company proclaimed the trio as embodying “a new generation of French athletes who transcend sport” and hailed Marchand’s creativity outside the pool as an important aspect of his identity.
Marchand was quoted with the gooey guff that accompanies these announcements, but he did offer a clue to his longevity when saying it would help him “make an impact in swimming for years to come”.
“I’ve always admired Nike: the energy, the culture, the values. Joining this team is a dream and a new beginning,” he said.
“It’s awesome for me, as a swimmer, to work with Nike to grow my sport with athletes and fans around the world. That is a really exciting challenge for me and I know that my partnership with Nike will help me make an impact in swimming for years to come.”
MAKING A SPLASH
Marchand is swimming a limited program in Singapore, with his only other event the 400m IM on the eighth and final day of the 2025 World Championships on Sunday.
When becoming the “Shin-Kaibutsu” in Japan in 2023, he set a new mark of 4:02.5. He is confident he has added further power to his repertoire and is intrigued by what that means.
“That’s still a whole new challenge. I know I’ve gained a lot of power, but I’m not sure yet it makes a big difference over the 400m. We’ll see,” he said.
“This is a transition year for me, so I wanted to have a lighter schedule than usual. I’m really excited to do just less than usual, just to see how far I can go, how fast I can go.”
Juggling the demands that come with superstardom have been a challenge, he said earlier this year, despite the optimism of his quotes in the Nike release about his future.
After an extended break away from competitive swimming after success in the short course World Championships, also in Singapore, last year, he felt fatigue.
“The flame of my sport had faded a little, and I had to rekindle it,” he told L’Equipe earlier this year shortly after rejoining the Bowman swimming squad in Texas.
Prior to the World Championships, Marchand said his gold medal winning deeds in Paris had proved life-altering, though not every element had been positive.
Having your face on a billboard almost 200m long, as was the case in Paris last year, will diminish anonymity, but so too will signing with a global brand such as Nike.
“I have to plan things. I can’t just go out on my own in the city and just go get bread. I know how to say ‘no’ better. It gets a lot more peaceful when I travel out of France,” Marchand said prior to the Singapore meet.
A success on Sunday would see him secure the IM doubles for the third straight World Championships after successes in 2022 and 2023, which is astonishing dominance.
But Team Marchand are planning for him to tackle some different events over the next couple of seasons, mindful that his main fare is still three years away.
“The next goal is three years away, so there’s plenty of time to do things,” Bowman told journalists during a meet in Florida early in Marchand’s preparation for Singapore.
“He needs the challenge of new events. He can’t just do the same events over and over. As long as he puts in his full effort, I’m fine with that.”
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