It doesn’t come along very often that a swimming event interrupts a track event. Maybe never. It is due to modern technology.
Champion of 400 and 200 IM. With a little Fly and Breaststroke on the side.
Léon Marchand was well ahead on his freestyle leg in his 200im race and the crowd at the pool was screaming their champion onto his fourth gold. In our modern world we can watch live events from our mobile devices and this created a cheer from the thousands of French fans in the Athletics Stadium too. Unfortunately for the 400m running event for the decathlon, which had just had the decathletes; ‘take your marks’, the cheer grew in volume and the start had to be abandoned.
Officials and commentators were confused, they obviously were not looking at their phones, and the athletes were ignorant too of the swimmer, however after a long pause, as the cheering settled and high-fives settled, the decathlon could continue. The officials now aware of what had happened.
Swimmer Leon Marchand affected the entire nation of France as their new hero, transcending onto the athletics field. Who’d have thought?
(Side note: the athletes in the decathlon were not negatively affected and had a fair start once they had a restart without having started at all in their race)
I competed in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul representing Canada and coached in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics for Great Britain. I have a degree in History and a minor degree in Psychology from University of Calgary. I have travelled extensively and have been very lucky to see so much of the world while representing Canada and Great Britain at swimming competitions. I am very proud of the fact that I coached a swimmer to become number one in the world in the fastest swimming race in 2002. I pride myself in my ability to find new and interesting ways to teach swimming. I am an accomplished artist specialising in sculpture, I have another blog called 'swimmingart' where I publish some of my swimming drawings. I have three young children; all boys. I have recently taken up painting and yoga....but not at the same time.
All of my writing is AI free. I make my own errors and am happy to do that. I am not perfect because being human is not perfect.
You can see my carving work at:
https://wwwoodart.wordpress.com/2024/03/18/wood-spirit-walking-stick/
And my paintings and drawings at:
https://swimmingart.wordpress.com
I competed in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul representing Canada and coached in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics for Great Britain. I have a degree in History and a minor degree in Psychology from University of Calgary. I have travelled extensively and have been very lucky to see so much of the world while representing Canada and Great Britain at swimming competitions. I am very proud of the fact that I coached a swimmer to become number one in the world in the fastest swimming race in 2002. I pride myself in my ability to find new and interesting ways to teach swimming. I am an accomplished artist specialising in sculpture, I have another blog called 'swimmingart' where I publish some of my swimming drawings. I have three young children; all boys. I have recently taken up painting and yoga....but not at the same time.
All of my writing is AI free. I make my own errors and am happy to do that. I am not perfect because being human is not perfect.
You can see my carving work at:
https://wwwoodart.wordpress.com/2024/03/18/wood-spirit-walking-stick/
And my paintings and drawings at:
https://swimmingart.wordpress.com
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