Hwang Sun-woo Lee Ho-joon Kim Woo-min Yang Jae-hoon
Today’s World Championship Qualification followed by the Finals
South Korea’s men’s 800-meter freestyle relay team of Yang Jae-hoon, Hwang Sun-woo, Lee Ho-joon and Kim Woo-min (from left) will look to win the country’s first team medal at the International Swimming Federation World Championships on Monday.
South Korean swimming will try to win its first team medal at the world championships.
The men’s 800-meter freestyle relay team of Hwang Sun-woo (20), Lee Ho-joon (22), Kim Woo-min (22+) and Yang Jae-hoon (25) will go for a medal at the 2023 FINA World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, on Monday. Korean swimming has won medals in individual events at the World Championships, but has never stood on the podium in a team event. In individual events, Park “Marine Boy” Tae-hwan won two gold medals in the 400-meter freestyle and a bronze in the 200-meter freestyle. Hwang Sun-woo won silver in the 200 freestyle last year and bronze this time around.
If the men’s 800-meter freestyle relay team finishes in the top eight overall in the morning heats on Aug. 28, they will compete in the final race, which begins at 9:40 p.m. that same day. South Korea reached the final of the event for the first time at the World Championships last year in Budapest, Hungary, where they finished sixth with a Korean record of 7:06.93. Of the four youngsters from last year’s team, Lee Yoo-yeon, 23, is out, and Yang Jae-hoon is in.
South Korean swimming has never won a team medal at a World Championships or Olympic Games. Its best result at the Asian Games was a silver medal in the men’s 800-meter freestyle relay at the 1994 Hiroshima Games. However, with the emergence of the “Golden Generation” of Korean swimming, including Hwang Sun-woo, the team has risen to the level of medal contenders at the World Championships. The men’s 800-meter freestyle relay is an event that the KFA has strategically developed with the aim of winning medals at the World Championships and gold at the Asian Games.
Lee also made the final of the 200-meter freestyle at the Games, where he and Hwang Sun-woo finished sixth. It was the first time that two South Korean swimmers reached the final of a management event at a World Championships. Kim Woo-min made the final of the 400m freestyle at the event, finishing fifth. In the 800m freestyle preliminaries, he touched the touchpad in 7:47.69, 한국야동 breaking Park Tae-hwan’s 11-year-old Korean record in the event (7:49.93).