South Korean swimming has found a new star at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Kim Young-beom, a 20-year-old from the Gangwon Provincial Government team.
Kim delivered a bronze medal for the national team with a ferocious closing surge in the final of the 400-meter mixed medley relay at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Japan on the 23rd.
Having already won one gold, one silver and one bronze at the Games, Kim added another bronze to bring his medal count to four: gold in the men's 50m freestyle, silver in the 100m freestyle, bronze in the men's 400m medley relay and bronze in the 400m mixed medley relay.
In the 400m mixed medley relay, the South Korean team of Kim Seung-won, Choi Dong-yeol, An Se-hyun and Kim Young-beom finished third in 3 minutes 44.12 seconds, behind China at 3:40.38 and Japan at 3:43.98. Through the 300m mark, South Korea sat in fourth, more than 10 seconds behind leader China and effectively out of medal contention. But Kim, swimming the anchor leg, turned the race around. He exploded through the first 50m of his freestyle leg to move the team into third and had nearly caught second-place Japan by the finish. The final margin with Japan was just 0.14 seconds.
Elsewhere, star swimmer Hwang Sun-woo fell short of a second straight title in the men's 200m freestyle. China's Zhang Zhanshuo won in 1:43.49 to become the first four-time champion of the Games, while Hwang settled for silver in 1:44.62. In the women's 100m backstroke, 16-year-old Kim Seung-won took bronze in 1:00.10, her second bronze after the 50m backstroke.
Meanwhile, China's 14-year-old swimming prodigy Yu Zidi also won the 400m individual medley on the day in a Games record, claiming her third title.
