Along with the likes of Olympic champion Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden, American National Champion Michael Andrew and 2018 Short Course World Champion Vlad Morozov of Russia, one of South Korea’s most successful swimmers of all-time, Kim Seoyeong has announced she will also be participating in the inaugural FINA Champions Series.
The new FINA Champions series is a 3-meet affair slated to award over $3.9 million in prize money when all is said and done. Athletes will be divided into teams with points awarded by those divisions and ultimately team champions will be declared and awarded additional prize money. Meet stops include Guangzhou, April 27-28; Budapest, May 11-12; Indianapolis, May 31 – June 1, with athletes participating on an invite-only basis.
As for Seoyeong, the 24-year-old earned a big-time gold in the 200m IM at the 2018 Asian Games ahead of Pan Pacific Championships gold medalist and top seed Yui Ohashi of Japan. Before that, Seoyeng had earned both IM titles at the Korean National Championships.
Per Korean swimming sources, Seoyeong has been selected to swim the 200m IM as part of the FINA Champions Series, but will only be racing the first two stops in Guangzhou and Budapest. The Korean Trials for this year’s World Championships fall at the same time as the Indianapolis stop, precluding her attendance in the States.
Seoyeong is currently training with newly-minted 200m fly World Record holder Daiya Seto of Japan at Kindai University in Osaka, Japan.
Jinho Lee contributed to this report.
