Korean swimming, led by Hwang Seon-woo (20, Gangwon-do Office), is leaving for overseas training once again for the first ever gold medal in the Asian Games team event.
The Korea Swimming Federation said on the 3rd, “To prepare for the Hangzhou Asian Games, we will send the special strategic training team within the national team, which has been organized since last year, to Australia this year for the second overseas training.”
The special strategy development team consisted of Hwang Seon-woo, Lee Ho-jun (Daegu Metropolitan City Hall), Kim Woo-min, and Yang Jae-hoon (Gangwon-do Office), who placed 1st to 4th in the men’s 200m freestyle final at the 2023 Business National Team Selection Competition last November.
In the men’s 800m final at the Short Course 안전놀이터 (25m) World Championships held in Melbourne, Australia in December of last year, they recorded the touch pad in fourth place, recording the best result ever in a Korean swimming team event. At that time, Hwang Seon-woo, Kim Woo-min, Lee Ho-jun, and Yang Jae-hoon raced in the order and set a new Korean record of 6 minutes 49 seconds 67.
Together with coach Jeon Dong-hyun and trainer Park Ji-hoon, they will leave for Brisbane, Australia on the 8th and receive special training for 35 days. Coach Richard Skals, former coach of the Australian business team, leads the local training.
Coach Skals is the mentor of Cameron McAvoy, the silver medalist in the men’s 100m freestyle at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, and Eliza Winnington, the gold medalist in the men’s 400m freestyle at the 2022 Budapest World Championships. The federation explained, “We invited Skalls coach, who is specialized in short-distance and mid-distance freestyle, to be the special training leader for this special training.”
“I am very excited to have a special experience with the four athletes who were very impressive at the short course world championships,” said Coach Skals. “he said.
The best Korean swimmer ever achieved in a team event at the Asian Games was the silver medal in the men’s 800m relay in collaboration with Ji Sang-jun, Woo-chul, Woo Won-ki, and Bang Seung-hun at the 1994 Hiroshima Games in Japan. Hwang Seon-woo, Lee Ho-jun, Kim Woo-min, and Yang Jae-hoon are determined to surpass this achievement in 29 years and win the first Asian Games gold medal.
After six weeks of special training with coach Ian Pope in Melbourne, Australia last year, they continued to write the best results ever, such as advancing to the finals for the first time in the team event at the World Championships in Budapest and finishing fourth in the finals of the Melbourne Short Course World Championships. By recording the highest ranking in an Asian country, expectations for the gold medal in the Asian Games were also raised. The federation decided to send them to Australia again this year to prepare early for the Asian Games in Hangzhou, which will be held in September.
The special strategy training team will return to Korea on the 15th of next month after completing the training camp in Australia, and will participate in the KB Financial Korea Swimming Championship and Management National Team Selection Competition held at the Gimcheon Indoor Swimming Pool from the 25th.