South Korea's Star Swimmers Sunwoo Hwang and Kim Youngbeom Advance to Finals in Men's 100m Freestyle with 2nd and 3rd Place

Smoothly Advances Through Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games Preliminaries

World Record Holder Fan Zhanle Takes First Place Overall

Finals Scheduled for 5:50 p.m. Today

South Korea's star swimmer Sunwoo Hwang (Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Government Office) has successfully advanced past the men's 100m freestyle preliminaries.

On September 20, at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Japan, Sunwoo Hwang competed in the preliminaries of the men's 100m freestyle swimming event at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, clocking 48.13 seconds and ranking second overall. The top spot went to Fan Zhanle of China, with a time of 48.07 seconds. Assigned to the final group (Heat 5) of the preliminaries, Hwang raced alongside Fan Zhanle, who holds the world record in this event (46.40 seconds).

Sunwoo Hwang advanced to the final as the second overall in the men's 100m freestyle heats at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. Photo by Yonhap News.

At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, Sunwoo Hwang set a new Asian record of 47.56 seconds in the men's 100m freestyle semifinals. Afterwards, he shifted his main event to the 200m freestyle. As the bronze medalist in this event at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, Sunwoo Hwang will challenge for a medal in the finals scheduled for 5:50 p.m. the same day at the same venue.

Kim Youngbeom (Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Government Office), who swam in Heat 4, posted a time of 48.34 seconds to place first in his heat. His time ranked him third overall in the preliminaries, earning him a ticket to the finals. Kim Youngbeom, who has emerged as a leading South Korean sprinter, is also considered a medal contender in this event.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.