Published : Nov. 20, 2016 - 21:47
Former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan closed out his Asian Swimming Championships in Tokyo with a bronze medal in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay event on Sunday.
At Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center, Park anchored South Korea to the time of 3 minutes, 18.80 seconds for the bronze medal, sharing it with teammates Yang June-hyeok, Lee Ho-joon and Kim Jae-woo.
China won the event with a new championship record of 3:16.37, followed by Japan at 3:17.25.
Park, the gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, will leave Tokyo with four gold medals and one bronze medal in six races.
Park Tae-hwan (Yonhap)
Earlier in the day, the 27-year-old finished fifth in the 50ｍ freestyle race.
Park won the 200m free on Thursday and the 400m free on the following day. He then topped the 100m and 1,500m free on Saturday.
It was the first time since June 2012 that Park has bagged four gold medals in an international competition.
The Asian Swimming Championships is Park’s first international race since getting shut out of medals at the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics. In Brazil, Park couldn’t make it out of the heats in the 100m, 200m and 400m free.
Park’s next destination is Windsor, Canada, where the FINA World Short Course Championships will be staged from Dec. 6 to 11. (Yonhap)