104th KOREAN NATIONAL SPORT FESTIVAL
- Thursday, October 12th – Friday, October 19th
- Mokpo Indoor Pool
- LCM (50m)
- Results (in Korean)
The 104th Korean National Sports Festival is underway at Mokpo Indoor Pool with many of the nation’s top-performing swimmers from this year’s Asian Games racing once again.
Through the first 5 days, we’ve seen 5 meet records and 2 national records bite the dust across both the men’s and women’s sides.
Baek In-chul made his presence known in his signature 50m fly event, downing his own Korean record en route to gold. Baek ripped a lifetime-best of 23.15 to knock .14 off his previous PB of 23.29. That former mark was established in Hangzhou when he became the Asian Games champion in the event.
Considering performances at the first two stops of the 2023 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup, Baek now ranks as the 3rd-swiftest swimmer in the world this season.
2023-2024 LCM Men 50 Fly
PONTI
22.65
| 2 | Maxime GROUSSET | FRA | 22.87 | 06/16 |
| 3 | Nyls KORSTANJE | NED | 22.90 | 04/05 |
| 4 | Roman SHEVLYAKOV | RUS | 22.92 | 04/18 |
| 5 | Michael ANDREW | USA | 22.94 | 02/11 |
The women’s events were highlighted by a history-making performance by teenager Heo Yeon-Hyung.
Competing in the high school division of the women’s 50m freestyle, Heo crushed a time of 24.97 to take the gold.
In doing so, she became the first-ever Korean woman to break the 25-second barrier in the event. Her outing overtook the previous national record of 25.08 Jeong Se-un put on the books at the 2019 edition of this competition.
Heo did not race for Korea at this year’s Asian Games but her performance here would have rendered her a 4th place finish in Hangzhou.
Heo now ranks as the 9th-best performer in the world on the season.
2023-2024 LCM Women 50 Free
SJOSTROM
23.66
| 2 | Kate DOUGLASS | USA | 23.91 | 02/18 |
| 3 | Kasia Wasick | POL | 23.95 | 02/18 |
| 4 | Meg HARRIS | AUS | 23.97 | 08/04 |
| 5 | Shayna JACK | AUS | 23.99 | 06/15 |
| 6 | Gretchen Walsh | USA | 24.06 | 06/22 |
| 7 | Torri HUSKE | USA | 24.09 | 06/22 |
| 8 | Cate CAMPBELL | AUS | 24.10 | 10/06 |
| 9 | Simone MANUEL | USA | 24.13 | 06/23 |
| 10 | Yufei ZHANG | CHN | 24.20 | 08/04 |
Asian Games 200m freestyle champion Hwang Sunwoo was also in the water, taking on his pet event. The 20-year-old produced a mark of 1:45.72 to only just keep teammate Lee Ho-joon at bay. Lee touched just .24 later to secure silver in 1:45.72 while Lee Yu-yeon rounded out the top 3 in 1:48.77.
Hwang and Lee were two of the members of the Korean men’s 4x200m free relay who earned the nation’s first-ever gold in the event at an Asian Games.
Meet Records Through Day 5
- Lee Ju-ho – Men’s 100m back, 53.81; 200m back, 1:58.00
- Ji Yu-chan – Men’s 50m free, 21.87
- Park Jung-hoon – Men’s 200m fly, 1:56.41
- Han Da-kyung – Women’s 800m free, 8:39.96
