Kim Minseop Fails to Qualify for Men's 200m Butterfly Final, Finishes 13th [Paris Olympics]

Kim Min-seop (20, Dokdo Sports Team), who became the first Korean male swimmer in butterfly to reach the Olympic semifinal stage, failed to advance to the final.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 30th (local time), Kim Min-seop placed 13th out of 16 with a time of 1:55.22 in the men's 200m butterfly semifinal at the 2024 Paris Olympics held at the La D?fense Swimming Pool in Paris, France. The last qualifier for the final, Martin Espernberger (Austria), recorded 1:54.62, 0.60 seconds faster than Kim Min-seop.

Earlier, Kim Min-seop advanced to the semifinals for the first time as a Korean male butterfly swimmer by ranking 15th overall with a time of 1:56.02 in the preliminaries.

However, the threshold for the final was high. He confirmed that even his Korean record of 1:54.95 would not have been enough to advance to the Olympic final.

Although he failed to reach the final, Kim Min-seop achieved the best Olympic result for a Korean swimmer in this event, surpassing Han Gyu-cheol (19th place) from the 2000 Sydney Games.

Before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Kim Min-seop was unable to participate in the national selection due to a foot injury. In the Paris Olympic national selection held in March this year, he secured his spot for Paris by setting a new Korean record.

After the race, Kim Min-seop said, "I am disappointed with the result. I cannot be satisfied with just reaching the semifinals," and pledged, "I will work harder to become a swimmer who can advance to the finals of major competitions."

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