Leon Marchand, the swimming champion who turned out to become one of the Paris Olympics’ biggest stars — winning four gold medals for Team France — is authentically portrayed by his father in an event documentary series called “Leon Marchand, Beyond Gold.”
The three-part series, which was teased by commissioning broadcaster France Télévisions at Series Mania Festival in Lille, is produced by Quad Group’s Yann Le Bourbouac’h, whose track record in the field includes the smash hit Netflix documentary series “Tour de France: Unchained.” It follows Marchand, a native of Toulouse, in Southern France, over the course of one year, following the Paris Olympics’ adventure. It’s co-directed by Xavier Marchand and Sacha Vučinić (“Tour de France: Unchained”).
Certainly due to Marchand’s hot profile as a national hero (having broken a record of four Gold medals), the docu series brings together two major players who rarely collaborate: France Télévisions and TF1 Studios. As with “Tour de France,” “Leon Marchand, Beyond Gold” will not be a basic sports series. It will have a character-driven approach which Le Bourbouac’h developed closely with the athlete, his father, Xavier Marchand – also a swimming champion — and his entourage, to align on their vision they had for the documentary.
For Le Bourbouac’h, the series was approached like a fiction, and sheds light on how Marchand coped with his sudden fame in the wake of his four gold medals and how his life was ultimately very different from the way it appeared.
“What we filmed over the course of that year was Léon, who, after the Olympics, felt that the image people were painting of him — because he’d won a medal — was distorted,” says the Paris-based producer. “There were things that were false about who he was and all that. He wanted to set the record straight, and above all, he wanted to explain what his life was really like — that it wasn’t as rosy as people seemed to make it out to be.”
“Because people were saying he’d won four medals thanks to Louis Vuitton and Nike partnerships. He wanted to say: ‘To get here, guys, I work every single day,’” he continued. In fact, the documentary sees him pursuing his engineering studies.
It’s a true coming-of-age story, Le Bourbouac’h says, “because it’s really a look at what you do when you’ve won it all at 22, and we see Léon asking himself all the questions you have at that age: Who am I? Where do I come from? What’s the real purpose in my life now?”
Le Bourbouac’h points that gaining the trust of Marchand’s family was key to make this documentary, noting that he is “part of this young generation of athletes like Mbappé, who have their families around them. They were their pillars of support.” As such, it’s co-produced by CLOX, Marchand’s vehicle which he runs with his parents and brother.
The documentary will also be scored by hip French electro band The Blaze. “Hugo composes music, and in this case, he’s going to compose the music for the documentary with The Blaze — we set him up to meet The Blaze during filming and we filmed them teaching him.”
“He meets his idols, he does his thing, he makes the music, so he blossoms, if you will, alongside swimming,” says Le Bourbouac’h.
That one-year journey also shows Marchand stepping into adulthood after he graduates and obtains his engineering diploma.
“It’s about a son who leaves for good. At this end of the journey, he’s no longer Léon Marchand; he’s just Léon. You see that the father watching his son truly blossom and, on top of that, succeed in his studies.”
“There’s sports, there’s that storyline about the athlete, what he goes through on the tour, all the ups and downs, his return with the French national team, the World Championships in Singapore,” says Le Bourbouac’h. “And above all, it’s about a young man’s personal growth.”
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