With a long list of swimming achievements already to his name, France’s Axel Raymond is one of his country’s premier open water swimmers: a gold medallist at national, European, and world level across a range of disciplines. A serving member of the Armée de Terre (French Ground Army), he is also the current World Army Champion in both 5km and 10km open water racing. Despite such an impressive list of achievements, he also has his eyes set on the 2024 Paris Olympics and the legendary Coronda River Aquatic Marathon, a gruelling 57km open water marathon that takes place in Argentina.

Raymond began swimming at the age of six. By the age of 15, he was the French under-16 open water swimming champion. In 2012, he turned 18 and took part in his first senior European Aquatics championship, winning a bronze medal for the 25km open water event in Italy. From there, the medals and accolades began piling up. In 2014, he won his first European gold medal, for the 25km open water event at the Aquatics Championships in Germany, a feat he repeated two years later in the Netherlands. Winning gold in the same event at the World Aquatics Championships seemed inevitable and, in Hungary in 2017, he achieved just that, doing the same in South Korea in 2019.

According to the International Swimming Federation rankings, Axel Raymond is currently one of the world’s top ten open water swimmers. He began 2020 by adding a new title to his ever-growing CV: French Champion of the 1000m free swim in frozen water.