Marchand, age 22, had never won a gold medal before these Summer Games. He's now claimed four individual gold medals in a single Olympics, putting him in a category of greatness once reserved exclusively for two Americans, Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps.
Some French are ambivalent about the decision to host the Olympics in Paris, but everywhere you go in the city there's Marchand fever. Taxi drivers talk about him. Teenagers swoon over him.
Marchand is expected to swim again on Sunday in a team relay final where another gold medal is very possible. One twist to Marchand's emergence as a national icon in France is the fact that his performance in the pool has been shaped largely by America's long-dominant swimming system.
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