Léon Marchand, France's four-time Olympic champion, secured his first continental title on Saturday evening at the European Swimming Championships in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, winning the 200m butterfly final in a world-leading time of 1 minute 51.72 seconds. The 24-year-old from Toulouse, already a seven-time world champion, had collected nearly every major honour in the sport but had never before won a European championship gold — a gap he now emphatically closed in front of a raucous home crowd.

Marchand dominated the final's closing stages after a tense battle over the first 150 metres with his training partner Hubert Kos of Hungary, who eventually faded. Richard Marton of Hungary took silver more than two seconds back, with Greece's Apostolos Siskos rounding out the podium.