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Park Tae-hwan grabs gold at World Short Course Championship

Park Tae-hwan grabs gold at World Short Course Championship

Posted December. 08, 2016 07:53,   

Updated December. 08, 2016 08:31

한국어

"Marine Boy” Park Tae-hwan has become the first Korean swimmer to win the gold medal at the short-course event held at the world swimming championship. Park came first at the freestyle 400-meter final at 3:34:59 at Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) held at Windsor WFCU Center, Ontario, Canada on Wednesday. Back in April 2006, Park grabbed two silver medals at the Shanghai short-course world swimming championship in 400-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle events.

Most of the world-class players do not participate in short-course world championships where events are held in 25-meter pools; a half distance compared to international standards. Top swimmers including Rio Olympics 400-meter freestyle gold medalist Mack Horton, silver medalist Sun Yang of China, and bronze winner Gabriele Detti of Italy were also absent. Other swimmers such as Conor Dwyer of the U.S. who is in the global top-10 ranks also did not show up. Park was followed by Aleksandr Krasnykh of Russia and Peter Bernek of Hungary who ranked 15th and 21st at the Rio Olympics, respectively.

Swimmers record better performances in the short-course than the official 50-meter course. Turns at every 25 meter give boost to players, and underwater swimming section is longer with lower resistance. Park also came seven seconds faster than his best 400-meter freestyle record at the 50-meter track at 3:41:53.

After failing at the Rio Olympics, Park has been continuing his rigorous march at three competitions for the last two months, following the National Games in October and the Asia Swimming Championship in November. “Tae-hwan is strongly determined to make up for his poor results at the recent Olympics," said Park In-ho, TGMP CEO and Park Tae-hwan's father. "Top swimmers didn't participate at this competition but we decided to go for it, because we thought it would be a great chance to compete with young players who will be the next champions in the global swimming scene, and it is difficult to train in Korea. Park will have his rest after this competition is over.”



Jae-Yeong Yoo elegant@donga.com