'Exhausted' Marchand skips short course swimming worlds

French swimming star Leon Marchand on Saturday pulled out of the upcoming world short course swimming championships in Budapest after an exhausting Olympic year in which he won four gold medals in Paris.

"2024 was really intense. I've done a lot of big competitions and I'm exhausted," the 22-year-old said on Instagram.

"It's time for me to step back, train hard and start preparing future challenges."

Marchand won five medals at the Paris Games -- four in gold including a double in the space of two hours -- and then participated in the three stages of the Short Course World Cup in Asia.

He won the three distances of the medley -- 100m, 200m and 400m -- in Shanghai, Incheon and Singapore, where he broke the world record in the 200m medley on 1 November, becoming the first man to go under the symbolic bar of 1min 49sec.

During the Asian event, seen as ideal preparation for the short course worlds, Marchand told AFP he was "just trying to have fun and go back to my standards" following the excitement in France after his Olympic exploits.

The Frenchman was thrust into the global spotlight in Paris when he won all four of his individual races -- the 200m butterfly, 200m breaststroke and 200m-400m medley double.

He had been eagerly awaited in Budapest from 10-15 December over the 25-metre distance.

His last appearance in competition was on 10 November when he represented his club Toulouse at the Interclubs in Montauban, southwestern France.

Trained in the United States for two and a half years by Bob Bowman, the former mentor of pool legend Michael Phelps, Marchand said on Saturday that he was "excited for what's ahead" in 2025.

Next year's highlight will be the world long course championships in Singapore from 27 July to 3 August.