A Swimmer Changed Towns and Teams, Then Broke a World Record

The email asked for a new life. Léon Marchand, a French swimmer born to two parents who had swum in the Olympics, was training in Toulouse, France, with a very good coach in a small local program. He wrote to Bob Bowman, the swim coach best known for guiding Olympic star Michael Phelps, to ask if he could join him at Arizona State University.

After some hesitation, Marchand sat down with his parents. They told him not to overthink it, and to go. So he left Toulouse for Tempe, Arizona, and traded one culture, one team, and one mentor for another.

That move is what Angela Duckworth, the psychologist who studies grit, calls situational agency, the belief that you can improve your situation by your own choice. Marchand did not suddenly work harder or become more talented. He put the same swimmer in a different place, with different people around him.

The physical change alone was stark. Arizona State offered three outdoor pools in a place where it rains 15 days in the entire year. The human change was bigger, with an extensive support crew and staff, a coach, Bob Bowman, who had guided champions, and teammates who were all trying to make the Olympics.

Within two years, Marchand cut nearly nine seconds off his personal best in his signature race, the 400 meter individual medley, a test of 100 meters in all four competitive strokes. In doing so, he broke Phelps's last standing world record.

The fuller payoff came at the next Olympics in Paris. There, Marchand won four gold medals and finished as the most decorated individual Olympian of the Games.

In Duckworth's account, Marchand gives the credit to his surroundings. He observes that nothing looks more solitary than a person swimming alone in a lane, but spectators do not see all the people supporting that swimmer behind the scenes.