When Caspar Corbeau visits Santa Cruz — the swimmer’s birthplace and where “95% of my mom’s family lives” — he doesn’t usually go in the ocean.
“That area has sharks,” he said, “and I’m always afraid of them.”
It may not be the case in the ocean, but in the pool Wednesday night at Paris La Defense Arena, the site of the 2024 Olympic swimming competitions, Corbeau proved to be one of the apex predators.
Corbeau, swimming for the Netherlands, smelled blood in the water late in the 200-meter breaststroke final and seized on his opportunity to snag the bronze medal. He swam the race in a personal-record time of 2 minutes, 7.90 seconds. That improves on the 2:07.99 he swam to win the Rotterdam Qualification race in 2023.
“To be able to see third place on the scoreboard is really, really special,” said Corbeau, 23. “And to see third place on the scoreboard? I’m really happy I could do it beside the best in the world.”
Leon Marchand of France set an Olympic record with his gold-medal performance. His 2:05.85 improved on the 2:06.38 set by Australia’s Zac Stubblety-Cook in Tokyo three years ago. Stubblety-Cook (2:06.79) earned the silver.
The arena shook with the deafening sound of cheers for Marchand even before the starting gun sounded.
“It didn’t feel like a swim meet,” Stubblety-Cook said, “it felt like a rugby game.”
And it’s no wonder. The 200 breaststroke win marked the 22-year-old’s third gold medal of the Paris 2024 Olympics — and his second of the night. After Marchand won gold in the 200 butterfly at the start of Wednesday night’s program, officials had to rearrange the schedule so he could have time to warm up after the medal ceremony for the men’s 200 butterfly. Two hours after his first win of the night, he climbed atop the podium again.
No French swimmer has ever won three gold medals, much less three individual medals, in the same Olympics.
“I was kind of leaning toward just doing one [event] even like a week ago,” said University of Texas coach Bob Bowman, who coaches Marchand. “But he was pretty confident. He’s like, ‘Let’s just see how the morning goes.’ Like, ‘Oh, well, that was pretty easy. Let’s see how the semis go. OK, that was pretty good.’ So yeah, we just stuck with it.”
On the topic of sticking with it, Corbeau almost didn’t. He said as recently as a year ago he considered retiring from swimming. Then the Texas graduate — who swam alongside Aptos’ Chris Staka with the Longhorns — moved to the Netherlands. Corbeau’s father, Tim, is Dutch and swam for Cal. His mother, Shannon (Hocum), swam for UCLA.
Training in Amsterdam with the Netherlands’ Arno Kamminga and Kenzo Simons under coach Mark Faber, Corbeau started to see his times drop. When he entered the camp about six months ago, he was fast enough to be an Olympian. In fact, he competed in the Tokyo Olympics but didn’t make it out of his heats in either the 200 or 100 breaststroke. When Corbeau left the camp, he was fast enough to be a medalist.
That showed during his first event in Paris, when he swam the fastest heat time in the 100 breaststroke. His time got slower in the semifinal and even slower in the final, where he finished last.
He left that swim in the pool, though, and hit reset before Tuesday and Wednesday’s heats. Swimming in Lane 6 in the final, he made good use of a powerful start. but still found himself a tick behind Team USA’s Josh Matheny after the first of three turns. By the next flip, Corbeau had surged into second place. And by the last lap, he had settled in third.
“It’s hard not to kind of peek, especially it just being my first [Olympic] final,” said Matheny, who swam in Lane 7. “He seemed to have a great race. I’m super happy for him for the bronze.”
Corbeau slammed his hand down into the water in elation following his swim. He often wears a grin, but it had broken wide across his face.
Corbeau said winning a medal has stoked his appetite for swimming. Now he’s ready to feast.
Next up: Corbeau said he’ll be back in the pool to swim relays for the Netherlands. That likely means the mixed 4×100 medley relay Friday and Saturday and the men’s 4×100 medley relay Saturday and Sunday.
