qWhen we talk about the “Léon Marchand effect”, the expression generally refers to the spike in registrations seen since the Olympic Games in French swimming clubs. But there is another Léon Marchand effect, the one that affects swimmers on Sundays, or rather, at lunchtime. Amateurs who, since the Olympic Games, swim a little faster, try a little harder, imagining that every time they raise their head above water, the cameras of the whole world are focused on them. This allows, let us remember, to swim breaststroke without any problems, because our champion has mastered this stroke.
In the days of corridors reserved for trackers, they were often accompanied by the mention “forbidden breaststroke” As if the followers of this style were bathers with unicorn buoys, Léon Marchand reminded all the beer drinkers on their lunch break that they were real athletes (plus, being photographed in close-up with your mouth open, the crawl, is less effective).
Since August, in the corridors of municipal swimming pools, everyone has been breathing a little harder, trying to be a little more efficient and believing they have new mental qualities, instead of imagining themselves riding a blue fish during an aquagym class. Swimming has become the model for individual discipline.
The Léon Marchand effect is also noticeable in families who can invoke the champion model when putting children who resist going back to bed to bed: “You heard, he said that the day before his gold medal, he went to bed at 8:30 p.m.” To identify with Thomas Pesquet, you had to speak five languages and have access to the International Space Station. To feel like Léon Marchand, all you need is a swimming trunks and a municipal swimming pool.
How do we recognize them?
They have already been to Decathlon three times since the beginning of summer. They tell themselves that it is time to change their goggles (there is not much else to change in swimming). They finally find the blue-green of the Olympic volunteers’ suits quite nice and no longer judge the fact that a T-shirt is made. “too sporty”. They have been putting their heads in the water since they learned that Léon Marchand’s secret was to gain time underwater. They wonder if they had accidentally gone down a 15-meter slide. They know the 25 or 50 meter time table by heart, thanks to the calculation of their lengths. They no longer take off their swimming caps as soon as they get out of the water. They begin to criticize their friends’ swimming skills, taking themselves as coaches (“You see, when your arm goes into the water…”). When they arrive or leave the municipal swimming pool, they spend some time in front of all the back-to-school posters, wondering if they should finally join a club.
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