Korean swimming sinks into dark ages

Park Tae-hwan leaves the stadium after finishing the men’s 100-meter freestyle heat of the swimming competition at the 31st Summer Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday. / Yonhap

By Nam Hyun-woo

South Korea has failed to send a single countryman to the Rio Olympics finals, sinking back to its dark ages. The plunge came as the country’s swimming community was solely depending on its star Park Tae-hwan to relive his glory.

As of Wednesday, the country’s swimming team has wrapped up its Rio campaign, with Back Su-yeon finishing women’s 200-meter breaststroke in 2:32.79, an eighth place record in heat 2.

With Park giving up his 1,500-meter freestyle race scheduled on Friday, eight South Koreans at Rio Games ended their outing without making it into a final.

South Korea has produced finalists in swimming in every Olympics since the 2004 Athens Games. In 2004, Nam Yoo-sun became the first South Korean Olympic swimming finalist, advancing to women’s 400-meter individual medley final, and clocked 4:50.35, a seventh place record.

The rest is mostly a carbon copy of Park’s career. All South Korea’s Olympic medals in swimming were collected by him.

The 26-year-old disqualified on a false start in the 2004 Games, but stood on the top podium in men’s 400-meter freestyle in 2008, the first-ever Olympic swimming gold medal in South Korea’s history, and collected a silver in 200-meter freestyle. Four years later in London, he added two more silvers -- 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle -- to his collection.

During those days, attentions and supports were given to the country’s swimming community, but it failed to discover and nurture talents who can emulate Park’s feats. Instead, Korea Swimming Federation was mired in a decade-long corruption scandal in March this year, with its 14 officials indicted for the charges of bribery and embezzlement.

And the community’s reliance on Park started to show signs of breakdown. In 2014 Incheon Asian Games, a regional version of the Olympics held on the home soil, not only Park but also other swimmers failed to collect a gold. The country managed to save its face with Yang Jung-doo’s bronze in the men’s 50-meter butterfly and women’s 4x100 meter medley relay silver.

And then there came Park’s doping scandal. Park tested positive for testosterone supplements in 2014 and served an 18-month ban from September 2014 to March this year. In his controversial Rio appearance with no sufficient training, Park was eliminated in 400-meter, 200-meter and 100-meter distances and gave up making a start in 1,500 meter.

The problem not only lies with Park but also with other South Korean swimmers who ended up being underachievers.

Back’s 2:32.79 record is far slower than her 2:24.67 finish in the London Games, when she made it into the semifinals.

An Se-hyeon, who garnered attention after setting three national records at a domestic competition, clocked 2:08.69 to be eliminated from the women’s 200-meter butterfly semifinals. After failing to reach her personal record in the distance, 2:08.41, she said “I’m embarrassed that I posted a shocking record. I feel so small on the world stage.”

Nam, who made history in the 2004 Games, finished in 32nd place in her 200-meter individual medley and Park Jin-young also failed to advance to semifinals in 200-meter butterfly. Only Kim Seo-yeong in women’s 200 meter individual medley made the full use of her ability with a 2:11.75 finish, a tie to her own national record.

Sports experts say a star in a sport attract more young talents into the sport. After Pak Se-ri’s emergence in women’s golf, young talents picked up the sport and helped South Koreans dominated women’s golf. Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na’s accomplishments let the sport widely known in Korea and many young talents are training themselves to follow the footstep of Kim.

With the Rio campaign showing that a budding swimmer who can succeed Park is yet to show up, calls are growing that the swimming federation should set up a long-term plan to nurture talents.