Korean swimmers break Asian record to win first-ever gold in 4x200 freestyle relay
![Korea's Hwang Sun-woo celebrates after finishing the men’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay at the Hangzhou Asian Games in first place at Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena in Hangzhou, China on Monday. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2023/09/25/40aa2627-f3da-453e-ac5c-a0acb9e40b5f.jpg)
Korea's Hwang Sun-woo celebrates after finishing the men’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay at the Hangzhou Asian Games in first place at Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena in Hangzhou, China on Monday. [YONHAP]
Korea won a gold medal in the men’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay at the Hangzhou Asian Games in style Monday night, claiming the country’s first-ever gold in the discipline and setting a new Asian record with a time of 7 minutes and 01.73 seconds.
Korea’s Yang Jae-hoon, Lee Ho-joon, Kim Woo-min and Hwang Sun-woo competed in the final at Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena in Hangzhou, China with Yang starting the race.
Yang finished the first 200 meters in second place and passed the baton to Lee.
Lee surpassed Team China from the 250-meter point and retained the front-runner position until handing over to Kim. By the time Kim went passed the 600-meter point, the time gap with China was 1.94 seconds.
It came down to whether Hwang extended that lead despite fierce competition, sprinting the final 50 meters to beat Pan Zhanle of China to finish the race.
Korea's time broke the Asian Games record — 7:05.17 set by Japan in the 2018 tournament — and the Asian record — 7:02.26 also set by Japan at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships.
The relay gold capped off a busy evening in the pool for Korea
Korean swimmers earlier won two bronze medals, with Choi Dong-yeol finishing third in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke and Kim Seo-yeong earning the other in the women’s 200-meter individual medley at the same venue.
Korea has won six medals in this year’s Asiad swimming so far, with Ji Yu-chan winning a gold in the men’s 50-meter freestyle earlier in the day, in addition to Hwang’s bronze medal in the men’s 100-meter freestyle and Lee Ju-ho’s another bronze in the men’s 100-meter backstroke a day before.
Korea may see more medals in the pool this year, with more races to come in the remaining days of the tournament.
Korea is historically the third-best country in Asian Games swimming, having secured nearly 100 medals.
BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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