Cho Sungjae Hits 59.9 100 Breast In Korean Trials Heats

2022 KOREAN SWIMMING TRIALS

• Thursday, March 24th – Monday, March 28th
• Gimcheon Indoor Swimming Pool, Gimcheon, South Korea
• LCM (50m)
• Selection Meet for 2022 World Championships, World University Games, Asian Games
• SwimSwam Preview
• Results

The nation of South Korea kicked off its elite selection meet for the summer’s competitions of the World Championships, World University Games and Asian Games today in Gimcheon.

Here is a quick reminder of the dates and locations of these major meets:

• June 18th – July 3rd – 2022 FINA World Aquatic Championships, Budapest, Hungary
• June 26th – July 7th – World University Games, Sichuan, China
• September 10th – September 25th – Asian Games, Hangzhou, China

Although two-time Olympic finalist and 2021 Short Course World Championships gold medalist Hwang Sunwoo won’t be making his first appearance until tomorrow, there were still some solid swims on day 1.

First, the men’s 1500m freestyle final, Kim Woomin got it done for gold in a time of 15:11.42.

Entering this meet, Kim was already ranked as Korea’s 2nd fastest man ever, sitting only behind national record holder Park Tae Hwan. Park owns the top time ever for Korea in a massive 14:47.38 from 2012, while Kim’s PB rested at 15:14.26 from last year’s Olympic Trials.

As such, Kim sliced nearly 3 seconds off of that result to establish a new career-quickest. Unfortunately, the time falls outside the FINA ‘A’ cut of 15:04.64 needed for automatic qualification for the 2022 FINA World Aquatic Championships in Budapest.

Also in the water contesting the men’s 100m breast heats was Cho Sungjae, the first Korean ever to dip under the minute threshold in the event. He punched a time of 59.65 at last year’s Olympic Trials and the 21-year-old repeated a similar feat in Tokyo, clocking 59.99 to wind up 20th overall in the event.

Cho is already 59.92 here in Gimcheon to set the stage for tomorrow night’s final.

According to FINA’s rankings for 2022, Cho now inserts himself onto the list of top male 100m breaststroke performers in slot #5.

Top Men’s LCM 100 Breaststroke Performers for 2022 

1. Adam Peaty (GBR), 59.05
2. Ryuya Mura (JPN), 59.31
3. Nic Fink (USA), 59.55
4. Yoshiki Yamanaka (JPN), 59.68
5. Cho Sungjae (KOR), 59.92