D id Léon Marchand deliver a humiliating snub to Quels Jeux!? Let’s delve into the story that has scandalised the whole of France , if by “scandalised” you mean “mildly diverted” and by “whole” you mean the sort of people who frequent the gossip columns of downmarket newspapers and like to make snap judgments about people they’ve never met. Quels Jeux!, the live late-night chatshow on France 2, has been one of the television smashes of the Games, delivering audiences of up to three million in its post-watershed graveyard slot. Filmed in the Club France headquarters in La Villette, it is where a procession of medal-winning French athletes have taken their curtain call, answering lighthearted and embarrassingly personal questions in front of a screeching and probably drunk studio audience.
But not Marchand. Despite being perhaps the most famous man in France right now, with four gold medals and the adoration of a nation, the swimmer has thus far refused to participate on the grounds that – according to Le Parisien – the show “does not correspond to his values”. Marchand, the newspaper reports, is a “reserved” person by nature and prefers his interviews to take place “off-set” and to be “mainly devoted to sport”.
And remember that this the pinnacle of Marchand’s sporting career, a two-week haze that will define his life, whatever he goes on to achieve in or out of the pool. Never again will he be this famous or in demand. Never will he hav.