By Cho Mu-hyun
Korean swimming star Park Tae-hwan won his first medal of the year in the 400-meter freestyle at the New South Wales State Open Championships in Australia, Friday.
The Olympic gold medalist clocked three minutes 45.57 seconds in the 400 meters final, easily outmaneuvering David McKeon who came in second with 3:48.20 and Stanley Matthew who came in third with 3:50.81. He came in first out of 56 contestants in the preliminaries that happened earlier in the morning.
The 22-year-old entered the tournament as part of his preparation for the London Olympics. He is aiming for his second Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter-freestyle, his best event, following his first in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
His personnel best for the event was at 2010 Gwangzhou Asian Games where he marked 3:41.53, which is also No.1 record for Korea.
Compatriot Lee Hyun-seung came in 8th with 3:56.08. The 25-year-old is the training partner of Park under Australian coach Michael Bohl.
Park also made the finals in the 100-meter freestyle, which started an hour later, but came in fourth with 49:65. He is to compete in the 200-meter-freestyle on Saturday and the 50 meters and 1,500 meters in the same category on Sunday.