Rising South Korean swimming star An Se-hyeon has set a national record and achieved the best result by a South Korean woman at the ongoing world championships.
An finished fourth with a time of 2:06.67 in the women's 200-meter butterfly final at the FINA World Aquatics Championships at Danube Arena in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday (local time).
(Yonhap)
This was the highest finish by a South Korean female swimmer at a major international competition. An, 21, also broke the previous national record of 2:07.22, set by Choi Hye-ra in 2010.
An finished only 0.65 second out of a bronze. Mireia Belmonte of Spain took the gold in 2:05.26, with Franziska Hentke of Germany getting silver in 2:05.39 and Katinka Hosszu of Hungary in third at 2:06.02.
Swimming in the eighth lane, An charged out to the lead at the first 50m mark. She fell back to fourth at the halfway turn and managed to fend off Zhang Yufei of China for her second top-five finish at these world championships.
Earlier in the week, An ranked fifth in the 100m butterfly with a new Korean record time of 57.07 seconds.
An is only the second South Korean swimmer, after Park Tae-hwan on the men's side, to reach at least two finals at a single world championships. Park is a two-time world champion in the 400m freestyle with a bronze in the 200m freestyle to his credit too.
Park ranked fourth in the 400m free and eighth in the 200m free this year. (Yonhap)
