A new march that even surprised me... 21-year-old Ji Yu-chan, what will it be like in Paris a year later?
Ji Yu-chan won the gold medal in the men's 50m freestyle at the event held at the Aquatic Sports Arena at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center in China on the 25th.
Ji Yu-chan broke the Asian Games record twice that day. In the preliminaries, he recorded a time of 21.84 seconds, 0.1 second better than the previous record, and in the finals, he recorded a time of 21.72 seconds, shortening the time by another 0.12 seconds.
On the same day, Korean swimming also won a gold medal in the men's 800m relay consisting of Hwang Sun-woo, Kim Woo-min, Yang Jae-hoon (Gangwon Provincial Office), and Lee Ho-jun (Daegu City Hall). In this event, it was an even more overwhelming gold medal, setting a new Asian record.
The reason why Ji Yu-chan's gold medal shines even more than the relay race is because it was a medal that no one expected. It has been 21 years since Korea won the gold medal in this event at the Asian Games since Kim Min-seok at the 2002 Busan Asian Games held at home.
Korean swimming 'superstars' such as Park Tae-hwan and Hwang Sun-woo also showed somewhat weak performances in short-distance events such as 50m and 100m, but the emergence of Ji Yu-chan marked a new turning point.
In particular, Ji Yu-chan has been showing explosive growth in recent years. It has only been a year since he was selected for the national team, and he is quickly shortening his record.
Until the World Championships held in July ahead of this competition, Ji Yu-chan could not overcome the 22-second barrier. At the time, Ji Yu-chan, who recorded 22.17 seconds in the preliminaries, ranked 24th out of 123 participating athletes and did not advance to the semifinals, where 16 people advance.
However, he quickly shortened the record in just two months, and in this competition, he not only broke the 22-second barrier, but also set a new competition record.
At his current pace, he will be able to show sufficient competitiveness on the world stage.
Ji Yu-chan's record of 21.72 seconds in the final was equivalent to 3rd place based on the world championships two months ago. At that time, Cameron McAvoy (Australia) won the gold medal with a season's best of 21.35 seconds, and Sabo Sebastian (Hungary) won the silver medal with a season's best time of 21.67 seconds. Florent Manaudou (France), who was in third place, had a record of 21.72 seconds, followed by Ji Yu-chan. It was like this.
Even based on the Tokyo Olympics, Ji Yu-chan's record is a top score, equivalent to 5th place. The gold medalist at the time was Caeleb Dressel (USA), who set a new Olympic record of 21.32 seconds.
The next Olympics will be the 2024 Paris Games held next year. As of now, it seems quite possible for him to become the first Korean athlete to reach the 50m freestyle finals.
There's still one year left. I am curious about how much growth Ji Yu-chan, who has grown continuously over the past year, will achieve in the next year. For Korean athletes, it may not be just a dream to watch the national flag waving at the swimming sprint stadium, which was widely perceived as an 'insurmountable wall'.
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