Marchand, McIntosh headline worlds cast

SINGAPORE (AFP) — French hero Leon Marchand and Canadian prodigy Summer McIntosh headline as swimming’s World Championships begin in Singapore on Sunday with thoughts already turning towards the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Marchand is appearing at his first major competition since rocketing to global fame at last year’s Paris Games, where he won four gold medals in front of an adoring home crowd and lived up to his billing as the next Michael Phelps.

The 23-year-old skipped the world short course championships in Budapest in December, saying he was “exhausted” after his Olympic exertions.

He returned to action in May and will concentrate on the individual medley events in Singapore.

Having broken Phelps’s 400-meter medley world record at the world championships in Japan two years ago, Marchand now has his sights set on Ryan Lochte’s long-standing 200m medley mark.

“He wants to see what happens in the 200m medley, without having any other races on his plate,” Marchand’s club president in Toulouse, Michel Coloma, told AFP.

While Marchand is still feeling his way back to action after his Olympic heroics, McIntosh heads to Singapore in red-hot form.

The 18-year-old broke three world records in a matter of days at the Canadian trials last month, including Hungarian great Katinka Hosszu’s decade-old 200m medley mark.

It was the first time any swimmer had broken three different long course world records at one meet since Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

McIntosh won three gold medals at the Paris Games and said she was “super pumped” after her scintillating start to 2025.