Park Tae-hwan claims third gold at Short Course Championships

Olympics gold medalist Park Tae-hwan ended this year by regaining his peak physical strength. At the FINA short course of 25 meters competition held in Ontario, Canada on Monday, he won the gold medal with 14:15:51 minutes at the men's freestyle 1,500 meter race.

Grabbing three gold medals here following freestyle 200 meters and 400 meters, Park surpassed his 2007 short course records when he had maintained his maximum body strength. At the 200 meter race, he recorded 1:41:03 minutes, topping his Asian record high of 1:42:22 minutes posted at the FINA race in Berlin, Germany in 2007. He also shortened his race by around 19 seconds with 14:34:39 minutes at the 1,500 meter race.

Park also beat Olympic 200-meter freestyle silver medalist Chad Guy Bertrand Le Clos of South Africa and Olympic 1500-meter freestyle champion Gregorio Paltrinieri (14:21:94 minutes) of Italy.

Though it was not an official 50 meter course, Park focused on his pace instead of being conscious of rivals, and excelled in fast turn motions in 25 meter intervals. He also recorded the fastest response speed at 0.60-0.64 seconds among swimmers.

Despite consecutive participations in the National Sports Festival in Korea in October and the Asian Swimming Championships in November, Park defied concerns that his body strength could have weakened. After competing for the 1,500-meter race, he went on for the 100-meter finals and posted 47:07 seconds. He couldn't find places to train in Korea and instead chose to join competitions, which helped him complement body strength and maintain performance. Park will rest for about a month in Korea before resuming preparations for the world competition in July next year.

Jae-Yeong Yoo elegant@donga.com