2023 KOREAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, March 25th – Thursday, March 3oth
- Gimcheon, Korea
- LCM (50m)
- World Championships Qualifier
- Results
The 2023 Korean Swimming Championships kicked off yesterday from Gimcheon with the 6-day meet representing the qualifying competition for this summer’s World Championships.
Right off the bat, Kim Woomin nailed a Fukuoka-worthy result en route to winning the men’s 1500m freestyle event. Kim got to the wall in a time of 15:02.96 to clear the World Aquatics ‘A’ time standard of 15:04.64.
Kim has already been as quick as 14:54.25 in his career, a time he produced at last October’s Korean Sports Festival. That ranks the 21-year-old as the 2nd fastest Korean of all time, sitting only behind Park Tae Hwan who owns the national record in 14:47.38 from 2012.
Kim’s time now renders him the 9th fastest performer in the world this season and the 5th fastest of 2023 thus far.
2022-2023 LCM Men 1500 Free
Hafnaoui
14:31.54
| 2 | Bobby Finke | USA | 14:31.59 | 07/30 |
| 3 | Florian Wellbrock | GER | 14:34.89 | 04/21 |
| 4 | Daniel Wiffen | IRL | 14:34.91 | 04/14 |
| 5 | Samuel Short | AUS | 14:37.28 | 07/30 |
| 6 | Mykhailo Romanchuk | UKR | 14:40.21 | 04/14 |
| 7 | Lukas Martens | GER | 14:40.85 | 04/21 |
| 8 | Sven Schwarz | GER | 14:43.53 | 08/11 |
| 9 | Oliver Klemet | GER | 14:45.39 | 04/21 |
| 10 | Liwei Fei | CHN | 14:46.59 | 05/03 |
Juho Lee also got it done for gold tonight, winning the men’s 200m back. Juho logged a podium-topping effort of 1:57.10 to beat the field by nearly 2 seconds en route to clearing the ‘A’ standard of 1:58.07.
Juho owns the Korean national record in this event with his time of 1:56.77 produced in the heats at the 2020 Olympic Games. The 28-year-old ultimately finished in 11th place there in Tokyo with a semi-final time of 1:56.93.
His time from these Championships ranks him 6th in the world this season and 4th in the world for 2023 in this 2back event.
2022-2023 LCM Men 200 Back
Kos
1:54.14
| 2 | Ryan Murphy | USA | 1:54.83 | 07/28 |
| 3 | Roman Mityukov | SUI | 1:55.34 | 07/28 |
| 4 | Joshua Edwards-Smith | AUS | 1:55.42 | 12/13 |
| 5 | Evgeny Rylov | RUS | 1:55.50 | 04/21 |
| 6 | Destin Lasco | USA | 1:55.63 | 06/28 |
| 7 | Oleksandr Zheltyakov | UKR | 1:55.79 | 07/07 |
| 7 | Mewen Tomac | FRA | 1:55.79 | 07/28 |
| 9 | Benedek Kovacs | HUN | 1:55.85 | 07/28 |
| 10 | Bradley Woodward | AUS | 1:55.95 | 06/17 |
Two other swimmers fell painstakingly shy of hitting the World Championships ‘A’ standards.
Dongyeol Choi posted a new lifetime best of 59.95 to take the men’s 100m breast, getting under the minute mark for the first time in his career. Entering this meet, Dongyeol’s PB rested at the 1:00.36 he put up at the Korean Trials in March of 2022.
His sub-minute effort makes him the only other man to get under the barrier, joining national record holder Sun Jae Cho who owns the Korean standard in 59.65 from May of 2021.
Dongyeol’s effort here, however, fell just .20 outside of the Fukuoka qualifying time of 59.75. He ranks 9th in the world this season and 6th in the world for 2023 now in this men’s 100m breast.
2022-2023 LCM Men 100 Breast
Haiyang
57.69
| 2 | Nic Fink | USA | 58.36 | 06/30 |
| 3 | Ilya Shymanovich | BLR | 58.41 | 04/08 |
| 4 | Arno Kamminga | NED | 58.71 | 07/23 |
| 5 | Nicolò Martinenghi | ITA | 58.72 | 07/24 |
| 6 | Federico Poggio | ITA | 58.73 | 04/14 |
| 7 | Lucas Matzerat | GER | 58.74 | 07/23 |
| 8 | Yan Zibei | CHN | 58.79 | 05/02 |
| 9 | Kirill Prigoda | RUS | 58.92 | 07/26 |
| 10 | Sun Jiajun | CHN | 58.99 | 05/02 |
National record holder Seungwoo Moon came even closer to the ‘A’ cut in the men’s 200m fly, falling just .02 shy. Seungwoo grabbed the 2fly gold in a time of 1:56.73 while the time needed for Fukuoka stands at 1:56.71.
Seungwoo’s result here came within striking distance of his own Korean standard, a time of 1:56.25 he produced at the 2021 Korean Trials.
World champion Hwang Sunwoo was also in the water, contesting the prelims of the men’s 100m free. Hwang cruised to the wall in a comfortable morning mark of 48.98 to capture the top seed while Hojun Lee was right behind in 49.04 for tomorrow’s final.
