30 July 2024
I firmly believe the 400 Individual Medley is far and away both the most fun event to race and the most fun event to watch being raced. I feel so lucky to have seen Leon Marchand swim both his preliminary and finals 400 IM swims at the Paris 2024 Olympics in front of his crazy, energetic French fans. Never before have I witnessed so much enthusiasm for a prelims swim ...
(French fans going crazy for Leon in the prelims)
... and the audience sing-along with "La Marseillaise" at the medal ceremony in the evening was beautiful:
(French medal ceremony sing-along)
But, when I went to swim at the Piscine Georges Hermant in the 19th arrondissement one morning and had to bob, weave, go under and around people swimming breaststroke in the “rapide” lane, I kind of wish Leon had chosen to only focus on his freestyle prowess. Based upon his 200 yard swims for Arizona State University and his NCAA record in the 500 yard freestyle, I am pretty confident he could have won both the 200 and 400 meter freestyle here in Paris. By M. Marchand instead winning the 200 breaststroke, I think he has unwittingly emboldened many French lap swimmers to believe that they, too, can swim fast breaststroke!
With that said, this is a very nice outdoor, six-lane, 50-meter pool, and now pool #691 on my #1001Pools list. I still managed to get in a 4,000 meter swim with only one errant frog kick to the gut!
(Click on pictures above for larger views)
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The other curiosity that this pool shares with Piscine des Amiraux is that, quite near each of these pools stands a bar/cafe named La Piscine. I didn't make time to stop into either one and forgot to take a picture of the one near the Admirals Pool, but grabbed this quick snap near to Georges Hermant.
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