Watch: Peaty denied third straight Olympic breaststroke gold, Marchand triumphs

A tearful Adam Peaty was denied a third straight 100m breaststroke gold medal by Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi Sunday, as Leon Marchand earned France their first Olympic swimming title in 12 years to send the home fans wild.

On a blockbuster night in a packed and raucous La Defense Arena, Torri Huske was also crowned women’s 100m butterfly champion, stunning world record holder Gretchen Walsh.

The evening was billed as a showdown between Peaty and Chinese world champion Qin Haiyang, but Martinenghi stole their thunder, touching first by a fingertip in 59.03secs.

Peaty and American Nic Fink both clocked 59.05 to share second place with Qin fading to seventh after leading at the turn.

The shock win shattered Peaty’s hopes of matching American legend Michael Phelps as the only men to win three consecutive Olympic titles in the same event.

“It’s been a very long way back,” said Peaty, who stepped away from the sport in recent times to deal with depression, among other issues.

“It doesn’t matter what the time is, to me I’ve already won. It took so much to get here.”

“In my heart I have won, these are happy tears,” he added, sobbing.

While Martinenghi excelled, it was Marchand who brought the house down with the second-fastest 400m individual medley ever, obliterating the field in 4:02.95.

The 22-year-old was the Olympic hosts’ big hope after last year demolishing Michael Phelps’ 15-year-old world record with a phenomenal 4:02.50.

Trained by Phelps’ old coach Bob Bowman, he pulled clear after the opening butterfly leg and surged home as the stadium erupted to end a French gold-medal drought stretching back to London in 2012.

“The atmosphere was amazing, I don’t know how to explain it. I had goosebumps before, and during the race too,” said Marchand, who will also swim the 200m medley and 200m butterfly.

“I was trying to focus on myself, but it’s really hard when 15,000 people are cheering for me. I did well in trying to use this energy to swim as fast as possible.”

Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsushita was second, nearly six seconds behind, with American Carson Foster third.

Overwhelmed

Huske upset American teammate Walsh to clinch the 100m butterfly crown, hitting the wall in 55.59, with Walsh second in 55.63 and China’s Zhang Yufei third.

It was a shock win, with 21-year-old Walsh heavily favoured after shattering Sarah Sjoestroem’s eight-year-old world record last month and owning the top three times in history.

“I don’t really remember my race that much,” said Huske. “It’s just very overwhelming when you’ve been training for this moment for so long.”

In other action, defending women’s 200m freestyle champion Ariarne Titmus surged into Monday’s final a day after taking the 400m title.

She showed few signs of tiredness, clocking 1:54.64 in the semi-finals ahead of teammate Mollie O’Callaghan (1:54.70).

Titmus shattered O’Callaghan’s world record last month at the Australian trials to set a new best of 1:52.23.

O’Callaghan also went under her previous world record in coming second, making the pair overwhelming favourites for gold.

David Popovici was fastest into the men’s 200m freestyle decider, blitzing home in 1:44.53 ahead of Britain’s Duncan Scott and American Luke Hobson.

The Romanian, who burst on the scene by winning the 100-200m freestyle double at the 2022 world championships and smashed the 100m world record later that year, is in top form after recently clocking the fifth fastest time ever.

Germany’s Lukas Maertens, fresh from winning the 400m gold medal, also qualified, but South Korea’s reigning world champion Hwang Sun-woo crashed out.

South Africa’s Tatjana Smith (1:05.00) led the way into the women’s 100m breaststroke final ahead of Ireland’s Mona McSharry and American world record holder Lilly King.

China’s Xu Jiayu clocked 52.02 to set the pace into the men’s 100m backstroke final ahead of Italian world record holder Thomas Ceccon (52.58) and American Ryan Murphy, the Rio gold medallist.