Hwang Sunwoo Breaks Park Tae Hwan’s South Korean Record in 100 Free

2021 FINA WORLD CUP STOP #3 – DOHA

• Thursday, October 21st – Saturday, October 23rd
• Hamad Aquatic Center, Doha, Qatar
• Prelims: 10 am local / 3 am ET
• Finals: 6 pm local / 11 am ET
• SCM (25m)
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The South Korean national team in attendance at this week’s World Cup stop in Doha continued their record-breaking roll on Friday, cutting down three more National Records.

Combined with 5 National Records on Thursday, the group has now set 8 total South Korean Records in 2 days of competition. Combined with Hwang Sunwoo‘s long course 200 IM two weeks ago, 9 total South Korean Records have been broken this month.

Friday’s Batch of record-breaking swims:

• Men’s 50 breast: Moon Jae-kwon, 26.43 (breaks 26.82 set on Thursday in a relay leadoff split en route to the 100 breast National Record)
• Men’s 100 free: Hwang Sun-Woo, 46.46 (breaks legendary swimmer Park Tae Hwan‘s record of 46.89, set at the 2016 World Short Course Championships)
• Men’s 200 fly: Moon Seung-woo, 1:54.22 (breaks 1:54.75 set by Yoo Jung-nam in November, 2005 during the FINA World Cup Series)

Among the records was the 100 free by Hwang Sunwoo that broke a record set by the country’s most accomplished swimmer, Park Tae-hwan. Park was competitive internationally in distances from 100 through 1500 and over the course of his career won 1 Olympic gold medal and 3 Olympic silver medals in the 200 and 400 freestyles.

While South Korea hosted World Cup meets in Daejon for three straight years in the 2000s, more recently the course has lost cultural significance in swimming, according to SwimSwam’s Loretta Race. That means a lot of the country’s short course meters records aren’t as impressive as their long course national records.

But a younger generation of South Korean swimmers are leading the country to a new level of depth, and that has led to more international sojourns, which means more short course meters exposure.

Hwang and Moon Seung-Woo are both only 18 years old, while Moon Jae-kwon is a relative veteran at 23 years old. Of South Korea’s 7 swimmers in attendance in Doha, 5 were are 20 years old or younger.