Nat’l swimming team returns home from worlds with 1 medal, 8 nat’l records in tow

The South Korean national swimming team returned home from the world championships in Japan on Monday, having bagged one medal and set eight national records in the pool.

Hwang Sun-woo, who won bronze in the men’s 200-meter freestyle, was South Korea’s lone medalist at the World Aquatics Championships, held in Fukuoka, Japan, from July 14 to Sunday. He also helped two relay teams break national records.

With a national record time of 1:44.42 in the 200m freestyle final, Hwang, a silver medalist in 2022, became the first South Korean swimmer to win a medal at back-to-back world championships. He joined fellow freestyle swimmer Park Tae-hwan as the only two South Korean swimmers with multiple world championship medals.

A small piece of Korean swimming history was made in the 200m freestyle final, where Hwang swam alongside teammate Lee Ho-joon, who ended in sixth place. The two became the first pair of South Koreans to compete in the same final at a swimming world championship.

In the men’s 800m freestyle, Kim Woo-min broke an 11-year-old national record, held by Park, by 2.24 seconds to finish at 7:47.69.

Kim ranked a career-high fifth in the 400m freestyle while breaking his personal best twice on the same day.

Hwang, Lee, Kim and Yang Jae-hoon broke their own national record twice in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay — first in the heats and then in the final — en route to a sixth-place finish in 7:04.07.

Hwang then joined Lee Ju-ho, Choi Dong-yeol and Kim Young-beom for the national record time of 3:34.25 in the men’s 4x100m medley relay.

Elsewhere, Choi established a new national standard in the men’s 100m breaststroke at 59.59 seconds.

Choi, Kim, Lee Eun-ji and Hur Yeon-kyung now own the new national record in the mixed 4x100m medley relay with 3:47.09. Hur, Yang, Ji Yu-chan and Jeong So-eun combined for the national record time of 3:27.99 in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay.

The next major competition for the swimming team will be the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, starting in September.