Did Léon Marchand Push Too Hard? The Injury Explained
7/9/202617 min
One of the biggest names in swimming is dealing with an injury—and everyone is asking the same question:What happened to Léon Marchand?In this episode of the Night Swim Podcast, Dax Hill and Elvis Burrows break down Marchand's injury, discuss whether the warning signs were there before French Nationals, and debate if his training, taper, or race schedule may have contributed.The conversation also explores the physical demands of breaststroke, why IM swimmers often face unique challenges, and what this injury could mean for the rest of Léon Marchand's season.
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First 90 secondsDax Hill· Host0:00
All right, moving on. Uh, Léon Marchand may be showing us that he is somebody who's really good at breaststroke and not a breaststroker. You know, as this injury happened, I was sitting here thinking, and this may be extremely naive of me, probably is, we all know breaststroker knees and breaststroker ankles. I personally have never heard of like a true thoroughborn breaststroker having a breaststroke injury. Like groin... What, what, what's his? His abductor?
Elvis Burrows· Host0:35
Adductor.
Dax Hill· Host0:36
I've never... Like you don't, at least for me, I've never heard of people who are actual born breaststrokers getting these injuries.
Elvis Burrows· Host0:47
Hmm.
Dax Hill· Host0:48
Think about it.
Elvis Burrows· Host0:50
What's, what's funny is I was gonna say I injured my adductor doing breaststroke in practice, but I don't even believe breaststroke's a real stroke, so I deserve to be injured.
Dax Hill· Host1:00
And there's a lot of people who aren't breaststrokers who, you know, have really good breaststrokes.
Elvis Burrows· Host1:09
Yeah. I would argue- Probably most of them actually because [laughs] you know, club swimming, if you can only do breaststroke, you can't train freestyle.
Dax Hill· Host1:18
Like you're kind of almost out of the, the, uh, training pipeline before it even starts.
Elvis Burrows· Host1:24
Yeah. I would, I would argue that kind of describes Phelps and Lochte. They weren't breaststrokers,