Baek Incheol, 50m Butterfly Asian Games Preliminary 1st Place with New Record

"Faster in the Finals... I Want to Add One More Medal"

Baek In-cheol (Busan Metropolitan City Jung-gu Office) set a new Korean record and a new Asian Games record in the men's 50m butterfly preliminaries at the Hangzhou Asian Games, advancing to the final in first place.

On the 28th, Baek In-cheol touched the pad at 23.39 seconds in the preliminaries held at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center in Zhejiang Province, China.

Baek In-cheol broke his own Korean record of 23.50 seconds set at the national team selection in March this year by 0.11 seconds, establishing a new Korean record. He also shaved 0.07 seconds off the previous Asian Games record of 23.46 seconds set by Xiang (China) at the 2014 Incheon Games.

Baek In-cheol aims for the gold medal in the final, which will be held at 8:36 PM Korean time on the same day. Since the men's 50m butterfly became an official event at the Asian Games starting from the 2006 Doha Games, only one Korean swimmer, Yang Jeong-du, who placed third at the 2014 Incheon Games, has won a medal in this event.

After finishing the preliminaries, Baek In-cheol said, "It feels good to have set a new Korean record and Asian Games record, but I am not satisfied with this time. My goal is to break into the 22-second range." He added, "In the preliminaries, I wanted to reduce my time to the early 23-second range and enter the 22-second range in the final, but my preliminary time did not meet my expectations. You might say I am ambitious, but I will work hard to break into the 22-second range and win the gold medal."

The Korean swimming and water polo team had won 3 gold medals, 2 silver medals, and 8 bronze medals as of the 27th.

Baek In-cheol said, "Seeing my teammates win medals gave me positive energy, and there was something boiling inside my heart saying 'I have to do it too.' I want to add one more medal to Korean swimming."

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