South Korea’s first medal of the Paris Olympics could come Saturday, the very first day of competition after Friday’s opening ceremony, with swimming world champion Kim Woo-min scheduled to compete in the men’s 400-meter freestyle.
The heats for the 400m freestyle will begin a little after 11 a.m. Saturday (local time) at Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, a western suburb of Paris. The final is scheduled for an 8:42 p.m. start at the same pool, or 3:42 a.m. Sunday in South Korea. It will also be the first medal race in swimming at this Olympics.
Kim won the 400m freestyle world title in February in Qatar, with a time of 3:42.71. He has since topped it with a new personal-best time of 3:42.42 in a tuneup event in June.
But that record is only the fifth-fastest time in the 400m free this year. Lukas Martens of Germany and two Australian swimmers, Elijah Winnington and Samuel Short, are all ahead of the South Korean, with Martens owning the fastest time at 3:40.33 and also the fourth-best mark at 3:41.98.
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f Kim can beat this trio for a spot on the podium, he will become just the second South Korean swimmer to win an Olympic medal, joining Park Tae-hwan from 2008 and 2012.
South Korea has won a gold medal on the first day of the medal race at each of the past four Summer Olympics.
Before the swimming race, South Korea could pick up its first medal of this Olympics in shooting, with two teams competing in the 10m air rifle mixed team event.
Park Ha-jun and Keum Ji-hyeon will form one team, and Choe Dae-han and Ban Hyo-jin will also represent South Korea at the National Shooting Center in Chateauroux, about 270 kilometers south of Paris.
The bronze medal match in this mixed team event will start at 5:30 p.m. in South Korean time, followed immediately by the final.
Ban, the youngest South Korean shooter in Paris at 16, is making her Olympic debut just three years after picking up the sport.
South Korea will also chase medals in fencing at Grand Palais in Paris, with Song Se-ra competing in the women’s indivi
dual epee event, and Olympic veterans Gu Bon-gil and Oh Sang-uk taking the piste in the men’s individual sabre event.
Should the fencers go deep into the tournament, the bronze medal bouts and the finals will take place in the early hours of Sunday in South Korean time.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
