"Incredible"

Nam Yoo-sun (Seoul National University) re-wrote Korean swimming history at 2:15 a.m. (Korean time) on August 15, at the Athens Aquatic Center. For the first time in history, a Korean swimmer stood on the starting blocks of the Olympic finals in the women’s 400m individual medley. From lane eight, the 19 year-old raised her hand and acknowledged the cheering crowd as her name was called.

Even though she was a little late off the blocks, she continued to race with all her might. However, the result was wanting. She recorded a time five seconds slower than projected; at 4:50.35, she finished 20 meters behind the two-time Olympic gold-medalist Yana Klochkova (Ukraine), who also won this event in Sydney in 2000.

However, at the 50m halfway point in the first stroke, the butterfly, she overtook the home favorite Vasiliki Angelopoulou (4:50.85, Greece) in the first lane, and from the breaststroke into the final freestyle finish, she never allowed Angelopoulou to come back.

Although far from medal contention in seventh place, Nam Yoo-sun achieved the best finish in Korean swimming history with a brilliant feat more valuable than gold. The current national team coach Kim Bong-jo stood on the 1964 Tokyo Olympic stage for the first time, but even Cho Oh-ryun, Choi Yoon-hee, Ji Sang-joon and other gold medalists in the Asian Games did not stand on the Olympics finals stage. The previous best finish was the eleventh place finish at the 2000 Sydney Games by junior-high student Gu Hyo-jin in the women’s 200m breaststroke.

On August 14, Nam Yoo-sun recorded 4:45.16 at the preliminaries, surpassing the Korean record (4:47.74) by 2.58 seconds, set by Cho Hee-yun at the 1999 Asan Cup Swim Competition.

The following is a Q&A session with Nam Yoo-sun:

Q: You re-wrote Korean swimming history. What are your impressions?

A: I was nervous before the finals, and my coach said, “When are you ever going to have an experience like this again? Enjoy the race.” I had the thought that I should avoid being last and set my aim.

Q: You have a pattern of doing well in practice, but not performing well at races, and have been called a “bullpen ace”…

A: It takes awhile to get my motor going. Other athletes are okay with just a 1500m warm-up, but I have to practice 3000m before a race. To keep my heart rate high, I don’t even sit in the waiting area, and I keep my body moving.

Q: Your future plans?

A: My future goal is to be a college professor, at first, I thought in sports psychology, but lately I’m leaning toward sports medicine.

Hwan Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com