Former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan captured his second gold medal in a local competition Tuesday as he continues to display solid performance after an 18-month exile from competitive swimming.
At the 88th Dong-A Swimming Competition in Gwangju, some 330 kilometers south of Seoul, Park finished first among eight swimmers in the 200-meter freestyle final with a time of 1 minute 46.31 seconds.
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Former Olympics swimming champion Park Tae-hwan. (Yonhap) |
It was his second gold medal in the competition held at the Nambu University International Aquatics Center after winning the 1,500m free with 15:10.95 on Monday.
The swimming contest, which also serves as the second round of national team trials for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, is Park's first competition since the National Sports Festival in November 2014.
After testing positive for testosterone, the 26-year-old served an 18-month international doping suspension that began retroactively in September 2014 and ended in March this year.
Park's time on the 200m Tuesday was well short of his personal best of 1:44.80 set at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games in China, and it was also more than a second behind the top season record held by British swimmer James Guy who clocked 1:45.19 on April 17. Park's time was the seventh best in the world this season.
His time, however, was enough for the "A" Olympic qualifying standards of 1:47.97 set by FINA, the world swimming governing body.
For a country to qualify two swimmers in each Olympic individual swimming event, both swimmers must beat the designated A standard time.
If there are no swimmers that can meet the A cut, a country will be held to just one swimmer who meets the "B" standard time.
But Park, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the 400m free, has already been ruled ineligible for the Rio Games by the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) regardless of his recorded time. Under the national sports body's rule on the national team selection process, athletes who have served doping suspensions aren't allowed to represent the country for three years, starting on the day their bans end.
However, if Park continues to finish inside the FINA's Olympic qualification marks and win gold medals at the competition, the public debate on the KOC's decision could heat up. He is scheduled to compete 400m free on Wednesday and 100m free on Thursday.
The 200m free is one of Park's main events. He won a silver medal at the 2008 and the 2012 Summer Games, and claimed a bronze at the 2007 FINA World Aquatics Championships in the event.
At the Dong-A competition, Park reached the 200m free final after marking the top qualification time among 16 swimmers at 1:50.92. Racing in the fourth lane in the final, he never gave up the lead from the start, clocking 25.12 in the first 50 meters.
Park eventually touched the pad nearly four seconds faster than the runner-up, Kwon Oh-kook, who finished in 1:50.06. Park is the only South Korean, male or female, with an Olympic swimming medal.
He also has two world championship titles in the 400m free. (Yonhap)
