Dethroned but gracious, Michael Phelps stood and applauded the man who erased him from the record book. Later, he placed a gold medal around Léon Marchand’s neck, posed for pictures with him and lifted his arm in the air, like a defeated boxer acknowledging his vanquisher.
Marchand’s reaction on a live Peacock broadcast, after seeing that he had annihilated the last individual world record of the greatest swimmer ever: “What the f--- is happening?”
Marchand spoke for many of us in that moment. How did we get here? How did we reach a point where someone could swim the 400-meter individual medley in 4:02.50, destroying the GOAT’s world record by 1.34 seconds?
