18-Yr-Old Kim Youngbeom Blasts 47.96 100 Free At Korean Championships

by Retta Race 21

March 24th, 2025 Asia, International, News

2025 KOREAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The 2025 Korean Swimming Championships began this week and already we saw some impressive performances as athletes try to notch their names onto the World Championships roster.

Racing in the men’s 100m freestyle, 18-year-old Kim Youngbeom blasted a new lifetime best of 47.96 to claim the top spot. out of the heats.

The performance represented the teen’s first-ever foray under the 48-second barrier.

Entering this competition, Kim’s PB rested at the 48.65 logged in the heats of the 2024 Junior Pan Pacific Championships. He ultimately won the gold there in Australia in a slightly slower outing of 48.66.

Olympic finalist Hwang Sunwoo remains the Korean national record holder in the men’s 100m free with this 47.56 from the 2020 Olympic Games. However, Kim joins Hwang as the only two Koreans ever to delve into the 47-range.

Kim becomes the 7th-best Asian swimmer of all time and is the sole sub-48-second swimmer in the world at the moment.

Of note, Hwang was 48.75 in the prelims.

2024-2025 LCM Men 100 Free

2Kyle
Chalmers
AUS47.2704/04
3David
POPOVICI
ROU47.3004/12
4Egor
KORNEV
RUS47.4204/17
5Pan
Zhanle
CHN47.7705/21
View Top 26»

 

 

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Aquatic Ursine
2 months ago

GMOs are breeding monsters

PFA
2 months ago

Dudes stroke rate is so smooth and long might be the longest I’ve seen for someone in a long time

cow from china
2 months ago

wouldve been 45 if his ears were in his cap

monsterbasher
2 months ago

How tall is he?? He looks gigantic in the water.

MPalota
Reply to  monsterbasher
2 months ago

Came here to say that, too! Looks like he’s at least 1.90m, maybe 1.95m.

Zdf
Reply to  monsterbasher
2 months ago

196cm
216cm

Dee
2 months ago

Damn, there’s man 4 on the Korean 4×2!

Cassandra
Reply to  Dee
2 months ago

just as one supreme falls (uk), another rises (china and korea)… bob has a lot of work on his hands if the us men are to ever win this relay ever again

Bruh
2 months ago

Looks like he didn’t breathe the first 25…

Team Portillo’s
2 months ago

Bro is 6’7

Astur
2 months ago

Do Assians (at least eastern Assians like Japanese, Korean and Chinese) peak earlier in life?

bonk
Reply to  Astur
2 months ago

huh

monsterbasher
Reply to  Astur
2 months ago

Idk. I’ll confirm with you when my life goes downhill.

Cassandra
Reply to  Astur
2 months ago

lol good luck phrenologizing the us out of its comparative decline…

siobhan haughey and zhang yufei both collected multiple individual medals in their mid to late 20s… wang shun and xu jiayu had pretty electric meets at age 31 and 29 — while their american generational counterparts (dressel, fink, murphy) did not

Pradnya
Reply to  Astur
2 months ago

What’s “Assians”?

Admin
Reply to  Pradnya
2 months ago

Many of our readers do not speak English as a first language. Sometimes that means there are typos and misspellings. It happens.

About Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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