INDIANAPOLIS — The blond-haired, blue-eyed, boyish face of the Paris Olympics is hiding amid a sea of broad-shouldered college students, at a publicly accessible pool, in plain sight.
Léon Marchand knows that spotlights will trail him this summer. But for now, he is trotting down a nondescript flight of Midwestern stairs, his hands stuffed inside coat pockets, his 6-foot-2, 170-pound frame indistinguishable from hundreds of others gathered here in central Indiana for the NCAA men’s swimming championships.
He has spent the past three school years in Tempe, Ariz., and even there, he says, strangers rarely recognize him.
“We’re undercover,” adds Hubert Kos, an Arizona State teammate and fellow world champion.
They are, in a way, just kids who play Call of Duty and go to class. Marchand is majoring in computer science. He has lived in dorms and dined at dining halls. With sharp French cheeks, a curly mane and …