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By Yoon Chul
Korean swimming icon Park Tae-hwan is likely to compete against world swimming star Michael Phelps at the Santa Clara International Grand Prix in California in June.
The Korea Swimming Federation (KSF) and SK Telecom sports division announced that Park will swim at the Grand Prix before heading to the biannual FINA World Championships — scheduled from July 16 to 31 in Shanghai.
It is the first race between Park and Phelps since they competed in the Beijing Olympics in August in 2008.
Starting from June 16 in America, the event is the seventh and last of the USA Swimming Grand Prix series and Phelps has never skipped this event.
This year, especially, many world-class swimmers are expected to come to California to participate as the last tune-up stage before the World Championships and that is also the main reason the 21-year-old Korean decided to compete.
The first part of the strategy in the overseas training session of Park, dubbed “Marine boy,” was to compete in May in America, but his coach Michael Bohl changed the plan.
The first bout between them will be in the men’s 200-meter freestyle and it is scheduled for June 18.
During the World Championships in Rome in 2009, Park failed to appear in the final round as his record was 13th among 16 semifinalists with a time of one minute 46.68 seconds.
In the upcoming world championships Park will try to touch the wall first in the men’s 200- and 400-meter freestyle instead of competing in his personal favorite event, the 1,500-meter freestyle.
Meanwhile Phelps, who collected eight gold medals in only the Summer Games in 2008, challenges in the four individual events and three team competitions including the 200-meter freestyle.
In the Beijing Summer Games Park was 1.89 seconds behind Phelps for the silver medal and Phelp’s record was then new world record clocking in at 1.42.96 seconds.
But a year later, Paul Biedermann of Germany set a new record (1:42.00) in the World Championships.
Park headed to Australia to train with Bohl on Feb 8. After he returns on April 2, Park is expected to go for his second and third overseas training sessions from April 11 to May 28 and from June 4 to July 15.
His schedule is expected to be revised due to his participation in the last U.S. Swimming Grand Prix.
So far the second training session has been shortened from April 9 to May 8 and the third may start on May 14.
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