Kim Woo-min wins gold in men’s 400m freestyle in personal best time

South Korean swimming sensation Kim Woo-min has set a personal best to win gold in a meet in preparation for the Paris Olympics.

Kim clocked 3 minutes, 42.42 seconds in the men's 400-meter freestyle final at the third stop of the 2024 Mare Nostrum Swim Tour in Monaco Sunday to beat Lee Ho-joon. Kim improved by 0.29 seconds on his personal best (3:42.71), which he set when he won gold in the 400-meter freestyle at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha (Qatar) in February. He also came within 0.89 seconds of the South Korean record (3:41.53) set in 2010 by Park Tae-hwan, the men's 400-meter gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was Kim's second consecutive victory in the 400-meter freestyle after winning the event in Barcelona on Friday.

Kim, who has been training in Australia, the Jincheon National Training Center in North Chungcheong Province, and then Europe, has been improving his time without ‘tapering,’ a development that is raising his chance of winning a medal at the Paris Olympics, which will open in July. Kim's time ranks fourth overall this year behind Lukas Martens (3:40.33) of Germany, Elijah Winnington (3:41.41), and Samuel Short (3:41.64) of Australia.

Hwang Sun-woo (21, Gangwon Provincial Government) also won gold in the men's 100-meter freestyle final by clocking 47.91 seconds to break the meet record (48.08). After setting a then-Asian record of 47.56 seconds in the semifinals of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Hwang missed the 47-second mark for two and a half years before touching 47.93 twice in the semifinals and final of the Doha World Championships in February. David Popovic of Romania, who won the title in Barcelona by 0.02 seconds over Hwang (48.51), did not compete on the day.


Bae-Jung Kim wanted@donga.com