Korea’s Han Dakyung Notches First Olympic Spot For Tokyo

2021 KOREAN NATIONAL TRIALS

  • Thursday, May 13th – Monday, May 17th
  • Jeju Multi-Sports Complex Swimming Pool
  • LCM (50m)
  • Results
  • Livestream

Korea added the first member of its Olympic Games swimming roster for Tokyo by way of Han Dakyung‘s record-breaking performance in the women’s 1500m freestyle.

While competing on day 1 of the Korean National Trials, Han punched a time of 16:26.67, crushing the previous Korean national record by nearly 6 solid seconds. She owned the previous Korean standard at 16:32.65 from the 2019 edition of this meet.

This new lifetime best surpassed the FINA ‘A’ cut of 16:32.04 needed to qualify for this summer’s postponed Olympic Games.

On her breakthrough performance, Han said, “I wasn’t really thinking about the Olympics; I just wanted to make sure I swam better than my personal best. I couldn’t have made the Olymic team without my parents and coaches.”

Also making some noise on day 1 was Cho Sungjae who clocked a new Korean national record in the men’s 100m breaststroke. While racing in the prelims, Cho registered a mark of 1:00.11, slicing .09 off of the previous record of 1:00.20 Moon Jaekwon set 2 years ago in Australia. Moon was indeed in this prelim as well, reaping the 2nd place position headed into tomorrow’s final with a time of 1:01.29.

Below is the schedule for the remainder of the meet.

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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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