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Paris erupts over Marchand, Riner’s record riches
REUTERS, Paris
France have already collected more titles midway through the Paris Olympics than during the whole of the Tokyo and Rio Games after a crazy Friday night that had the home fans listening to three times.
Teddy Riner’s record fourth Olympic title in judo, swimming poster boy Leon Marchand’s fourth and Joris Daudet’s victory in a sensational BMX 1-2-3 took Les Bleus’s gold tally to 11 - one more than in Tokyo three years ago and Rio in 2016.
Marchand brought the host nation to a standstill once again and the 22-year-old did it in style, roared to the rafters by a rapturous crowd as he joined American greats Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz as the only male swimmers to have won four individual titles at a single Games.
“It’s just crazy to be compared to those guys [Phelps and Spitz]. I don’t think I realise from now. Maybe I will in a few days,” said Marchand whose coach, Bob Bowman, also worked with Phelps.
Emphasising his status as the hottest property in the pool, Marchand shattered the 200 metres Individual Medley Olympic record of one minute 54.23 seconds set by Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Games and replaced it with a new best of 1:54.06.
It is the fourth such record set by the poster boy of the Paris Games, who has taken the burden of expectation and shaped it into another source of strength, in as many finals in the La Defense Arena.
Around the city, and at other venues, crowds celebrated and burst into the national anthem.
At the Stade de France, scene of France’s momentous 1998 World Cup football triumph and venue for the track and field events, the decathlon 400m had to be delayed due to the noise from the stands.
“I don’t think anything went wrong this week. It’s been perfect,” Marchand told reporters as the crowd chanted his name long into the night.
“Four gold medals is not what I thought I could possibly do,” he added later. “I was trying to win one at first. I had four chances of doing it.”
A few hours earlier, Frenchman Riner sent the partisan crowd into near madness when he left it late to beat world number one Kim Minjong of South Korea and claim the title in the +100kg category.
The 35-year-old, judo’s most decorated athlete at the Olympics with six medals, now shares the French Summer Olympics record of four titles after claiming individual golds at the London and Rio Games and a team title in Tokyo.
The roar the crowd let out was deafening, and when Riner was awarded his medal by former biathlete Martin Fourcade, who holds the French record of five golds across Winter and Summer Olympics, it triggered another ear-splitting moment when the first official rendition of France’s national anthem “La Marseillaise” resonated at the venue.
Meanwhile, French fans broke into an impromptu rendition of the Marseillaise in the middle of a Brazil v Netherlands beach volleyball game at the nearby venue by the Eiffel Tower as the news filtered through.
“I often said it but now it is just pure happiness, pure happiness,” said Riner, who has surpassed Japanese judoka Ryoko Tani’s five Olympic medals tally collected over five consecutive Games from 1992 to 2008.