"Regrettable, Spur... Hwang Sunwoo 5th Place in Men's 100m Freestyle"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Hwang Sun-woo (18, Seoul Physical Education High School) finished 5th in the men's 100m freestyle. On the morning of the 29th, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics swimming men's 100m freestyle final held at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Japan, he completed the race in 47.82 seconds. He missed out on a medal, finishing 0.26 seconds slower than the Asian record (47.56 seconds) he set in the semifinals the day before.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The final sprint was disappointing. Among the eight swimmers, Hwang Sun-woo showed the fastest reaction time (0.58 seconds). He also handled the first 50m of the race smoothly. He passed in 6th place with a time of 23.12 seconds, which was 0.05 seconds faster than the 23.17 seconds he recorded in the semifinals when he set the Asian record.

However, Hwang was unable to muster strength in the last 50m segment and gradually fell behind the leading group. He recorded 24.70 seconds, 0.31 seconds slower than the 24.39 seconds in the semifinals. Although he improved his position from 6th to 5th, it was not enough to catch up with Caleb Dressel (USA, 47.02 seconds), Kyle Chalmers (Australia, 47.08 seconds), and Kliment Kolesnikov (Russia, 47.44 seconds).

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Although he failed to win a medal, Hwang Sun-woo had already achieved an astonishing feat. He broke the men's 100m freestyle Asian record held by Ning Zetao (China) by 0.09 seconds, and set a new Korean record in the men's 200m freestyle (1 minute 44.62 seconds). His 100m freestyle time is also a world junior record. He edged out the 47.57 seconds set by Russia's Andrey Minakov last October by 0.01 seconds. This was more than enough to make this competition a 'global showcase.'

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.