Swim Phenom Finds Training Partner

Korea’s swim phenom Park Tae-hwan (18, Kyunggi High School), who recently left the Taereung Training Center, opting for personal training, has found a partner that could provide him indispensable help.

When Park declared on January 3 that he will take personal lessons, swim experts were mostly worried about it. This is because no matter how talented, it is hard for an athlete to improve his or her competence without a competing partner.

Park might be able to ease his concern regarding this problem. His relief is Kang Yong-hwan (22, Gangwon Province), Korean runner-up in the rankings of middle to long distance free-style races after Park. Kang won a bronze medal in the men`s 4x200m freestyle relay at the Doha Asian Games and finished the race fourth in the 1500m freestyle.

No more worries for lacking a competitor-

It is true that Park and Kang are rivals in 400m and 1500m freestyle, but they are also inseparable buddies who shared a room at Taereung Training Center since February 2005.

Being one of the 19 national team members, Kang Yong-hwan has been ordered by the Korea Swimming Federation to join the training camp at Taereung. In the afternoon of January 8, he visited Jamsil 2 Swimming Pool where Park was working out and took two hours of practical training with him under the permission of Park’s personal trainer Park Seok-ki, who once coached the national team.

After having an overnight talk with Park Tae-hwan, Kang took the same training program as Park on the next day. They went out jogging together at 7:00 a.m., lifted weights together between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., and had actual practices in the pool together between 4:00 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. Then, later in the evening during dinner, Kang began imploring Park Seok-ki, “I want to train with Tae-hwan. I’ve already sent an application for personal training to the federation by post earlier today.”

Kang: I’ve improved drastically practicing with Park-

On January 19, Kang said, “As I have been practicing with Tae-hwan for almost two years, my record has been improved a lot. It’s not easy to get a partner like him.”

His record as of March 2005 when he won the men’s freestyle 1500m at Donga Swimming Tournament was 16:08:92. But when he ended up fourth in the Doha Asian Games, it was 15:23:53. In other words, he has shortened his record more than 45 seconds. Kang believes that he was able to do this because he has exercised with Park.

No wonder Park Tae-hwan is also glad for him joining. He said, “Even hard trainings are fun if I do it with Yong-hwan.”

“I gave Kang the permission to train with Tae-hwan because he was so determined. Companies that are seeking to sponsor Park have agreed to pay for Kang’s training expenses as well,” commented the coach Park Seok-ki.

jeon@donga.com