Los Angeles 2028 Schedule Gives Leon Marchand New, Less Pressing Double
The release of the official schedule of all sporting events for the 2028 Olympics on Wednesday makes it possible for swimmers to start targeting their programs for Los Angeles. It puts concrete terms to the scheduling crunch some might be thinking their way through.
For Leon Marchand, one of the stars of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the schedulers did him a bit of favor this time around.
The apex of Marchand’s Paris Olympics was the fifth day of the nine-day meet, when he won gold in the 200 butterfly and 200 breaststroke in the same finals session.
Marchand won’t have to pull a similar feat this year, but he does have a tricky day possible on the sixth day of the swim meet. On July 27, Day 13 of the Los Angeles Olympics at-large, Marchand will presumably start the day with the 200 breast preliminaries. The evening final will include the semifinals of the 200 breast and the final of the men’s 200 individual medley.
That’s the only day that seems jumbled for Marchand, if he picks a similar program as Paris.
The Frenchman faces a straightforward start to the meet. He doesn’t have an event on Day 1, unless he chases the 100 breaststroke or 400 freestyle, the latter of which would end that same night. The second day of the meet brings the 400 individual medley heats in the morning and the final at night.
Day 3 is similarly simple in design: 200 fly heats in the morning, 200 fly semifinal at night. He doesn’t have a morning swim on Day 4 of the meet – the only men’s preliminary event that day is the 50 free – before the 200 fly final at night.
His meet starts to get tricky around Day 5, which is when relays come in for him. The fifth day (July 26) will feature the 200 IM heats in the morning. The night session has the semifinals of that and the possibility of Marchand swimming on the French 800 free relay.
After the Day 6 finals double, he has the 200 breast final in the night session of Day 7. He may or may not swim in the mixed medley relay heats that morning.
From then on out, it’s relays, with men’s medley relay prelims to start Day 8, the mixed medley relay final that night, then the men’s medley relay in the concluding session on the ninth day of the swimming program and the 16th and final day of the Olympics.
Marchand didn’t swim in the final of the 800 free relay in Paris, the French finishing fifth. He swam both prelims and finals for France’s bronze-winning men’s medley relay and subbed into finals of the mixed medley relay that placed fourth.
He is somewhat constrained in adding new events. The 400 free starts and ends on Day 1 if he wanted to chase that.
