“To mirror the pain of Tokyo, Paris must stand on the podium.”

Finished in 7th place while soloing in the 200m freestyle “Due to lack of experience, I ran the 150m alone” Gold at the World Championships in February. Recharge your self-confidence “I feel that my skills are improving as much as I train. “I repay my high school senior sister with a Paris cheering medal.”

“This time I have to stand on the podium. “If possible, the highest place would be better, right?”

This is the answer given to Korean swimming star Hwang Seon-woo (21) when asked about his goal for the Paris Olympics. The opening of the Paris Olympics (July 26, local time) is 100 days away. For Hwang Sun-woo, this is his second Olympics, following the Tokyo Games he participated in in 2021 when he was a third year student at Seoul Sports High School. Hwang Sun-woo, who is competing in four events including the men's 100m and 200m freestyle, 800m relay, and 400m medley relay, will become the second Korean swimmer to challenge for an Olympic medal after 'Marine Boy' Park Tae-hwan (35). 파워볼사이트

Hwang Sun-woo also raised expectations as the ‘second Park Tae-hwan’ during the Tokyo Olympics. Sunwoo Hwang set a new world junior record (1 minute 44.62 seconds) in the 200m freestyle preliminaries, which was the main event at the time. He was also in the lead until the 150m mark in the final, but slipped to 7th in the final 50m. Lack of experience was the problem. He also set an Asian record at the time (47.56 seconds) in the semifinals of the 100m freestyle, but only placed 5th (47.82 seconds) in the finals. Hwang Sun-woo eventually returned home with ‘no medals’.

Sunwoo Hwang said, “I could have won a bronze medal in the 200m finals even if I had achieved the same record as in the preliminaries. Everyone else was running 200m, but I was the only one running 150m. “Even thinking about it now, my heart aches,” he said. “I have gained enough experience in international competitions in the three years since the Tokyo Olympics and have come this far with many different colors of medals around my neck. “I will definitely come back with at least one medal at this Olympics,” he pledged.

Sunwoo Hwang said, “Originally, whenever I competed in a big competition, my parents always came to cheer me on. However, he could not come to the Tokyo Olympics due to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection. This time, he even said he would come to Paris to cheer on his younger sister, a high school senior who is about to take college entrance exams. When he told me that he was going to the Olympics, his younger brother was happy and said, 'I bought a plane ticket to Paris,' which made me laugh. Everything, including my mindset and environment, is perfect. “I see the medal,” he said with a smile.

It is not a ‘sense of confidence’ (unfounded confidence). Sunwoo Hwang won the 200m freestyle gold medal at the Doha World Championships in February with a time of 1 minute 44.75 seconds. This year, the only athlete in the world who swam 200 meters faster than this is Matthew Richards (22, England). At the British Championships held this month, Richards touched the touch pad in 1 minute 44.69 seconds, 0.06 seconds faster than Hwang Sun-woo. 0.06 seconds is the difference of one finger.

That's why swimmers also pay attention to the length of their fingernails. Sunwoo Hwang said, “I don’t cut my nails two or three weeks before the competition. “I don’t want to miss the small sensations I feel at my fingertips in the water, so I leave them as is,” he explained. Hwang Sun-woo attended the reward presentation ceremony prepared by his sponsor, SK Telecom, on the 28th of last month, the day after the end of the national team selection competition for the Paris Olympics, in a neat suit, but his nails were not yet cleaned. Hwang Seon-woo scratched his head, saying, “I was only thinking about swimming until yesterday, so I forgot to shave.” Pool depth also affects records. Hwang Seon-woo, who won a ticket to Paris with a time of 1 minute 44.90 seconds in the 200m freestyle national team selection event held at the Gimcheon Indoor Swimming Pool in Gyeongbuk, said, “This is the first time I have recorded a time under 1 minute 44 seconds in the selection competition,” and added, “The depth of the water in Gimcheon Swimming Pool is 1.8m. . “If I go to the Olympic swimming pool (3m), where the water is much deeper, I think I will be able to naturally achieve a record of 1 minute and 43 seconds (which is my target record),” he said with a smile. The deeper the water, the greater the buoyancy and the weaker the current, which helps shorten the record. Members of the Korean swimming team, including Hwang Sun-woo, originally planned to visit Australia for training before the Paris Olympics. Starting in 2022, the Korea Swimming Federation is helping athletes improve their skills with an Australian training program where they will train with Australian national team coaches. Even when Korea posted its best-ever results (2 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze medals) at the Doha World Championships, it was evaluated that the training camp in Australia was effective. However, the Australian Swimming Federation banned national team coaches from working concurrently for about eight weeks from the middle of this month and revised the plan to train only at the Jincheon Training Center. Sunwoo Hwang said, “Training in Australia had the purpose of being in a place where there were many good players and helping them grow their dreams. Nowadays, there are many good players in Korea, so I don’t feel much of a difference. “I don’t think the change in plan is a bad thing,” he said. Not only Hwang Sun-woo but also Kim Woo-min (23) are considered candidates for the men's 400m freestyle medal at the Paris Olympics. Kim Woo-min also won a gold medal in this event at the Doha World Championships. Korea is also considered a medal candidate at the Paris Olympics in the 800m relay, where Hwang Sun-woo, Kim Woo-min, and Lee Ho-jun (23) worked together to win the silver medal at the World Championships. It was difficult to imagine even at the Tokyo Games three years ago. Hwang Seon-woo said, “If I had won a medal in Tokyo, I would have become arrogant and become a worse player than I am now. “I feel every time I participate in a competition that if I train hard, my skills improve,” he said. “I’m only 21 years old, and I think I’ve just entered the golden age of my life. “I want to become an athlete who wins Olympic medals not only in Paris but also in consecutive years,” he said. 한국야동