South Korean swimming superstar Tae-Hwan Park has been honored by being featured in a music video by his countryman Kim Soo Hyun – a very popular actor in the home country of Park.
The song is called “Marine Boy” after the nickname of Park. In London, he will be looking to defend his Olympic gold medal in the 400 free, as well as a silver in the 200.
The swimmer
Below are the translation of the lyrics, thanks to popgasa.com:
The prince of the sea, Marine Boy
Fighting well under the blue sea
Wise, valiant and brave
Marine Boy is on our side
The prince of the sea, marine boy
Fighting well under the blue sea
Wise, valiant and brave
Marine Boy is on our side
Yeah!
Hi, flip over that London town
The marine boy yo is coming out
Everyone move out of the way, new record
Set a record, a glorious venture
Higher, faster, further, let’s go
Marine Boy is a brave hero
Conquest a victory, the best in the world is going
Let’s go Marine Boy
The prince of the sea, marine boy
Fighting well under the blue sea
Wise, valiant and brave
Marine Boy is on our side
That a cappella opening was the opposite of catchy. And was it just an ad for Samsung’s new laptops?
The shots of him swimming looked like he was sighting in an open-water race, got them eyes up and out of the pool. (’bout a minute and eight seconds in.)
Yeah….. he’s popular in Korea, but then again Koreans can be cruel if he has an “off” meet. Some of the comments I heard after the ’09 Worlds were so strange. “Oh, he’s no longer proud of his country”, “he doesn’t like swimming anymore”, “he’s not as good as he used to be”, “he needs to retire”, “his sponsors are angry”……
There were news reports on television about how “bad” he swam in Rome. It was BIG. I remember I had a race playing in my office and a Korean colleague came in and rolled her eyes (almost as in disgust) and said something to the effect of “he swims so bad now, he’s not our pride anymore”.
Then after the ’11 Worlds last summer he was back on top. And so began again the commercials on tv (like the one above) for bottled water, banks, computers, etc….
As swimmers, coaches, fans, etc, we’re all used to entertaining non-swimmers’ questions from time to time (how come Phelps didn’t break a world record this time? Lotche swam at a small meet this weekend, why didn’t he go a best time?) , but here in Korea it is like a different level altogether. There’s a LOT of national pride in Park, but there are also reasons why he and YuNa Kim (look her up if you need to) both train outside Korea……