Park Tae-hwan will sit out FINA world championships

Korean Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan will skip this year’s world championships, set to be held on home soil this summer, his agency said Wednesday.

An official with Park’s management firm, Team GMP, told reporters that Park will not participate in the July 12 to 28 FINA World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju. The official said Park, 29, is “in no shape to compete at international competitions.”

Park attended the unveiling ceremony of the official uniforms and medals for the world championships in Seoul Wednesday. He is an honorary ambassador for the event.

Park, the 2008 Olympic champion in the 400-meter freestyle, is also the only Korean to have won a world title. He won the 400-meter freestyle title in Melbourne in 2007 and also added a bronze in the 200-meter freestyle there. Four years later, in Shanghai, Park won his second world championship in the 400-meter freestyle.

The Team GMP official said Park has only recently resumed training and he is targeting the National Sports Festival in October.

Yonhap