[Anchor]
South Korean swimming added three more silver medals today (September 24). Nineteen-year-olds Park Si-eun in the women's 200m breaststroke and Kim Jun-woo in the men's 800m freestyle both captured silver medals with new Korean records. The men's 400m freestyle relay team also delivered a thrilling silver-medal performance.
Reporting from Tokyo, here is Ha Seong-nyong.
[Reporter]
After finishing second overall in the preliminaries, Park Si-eun cut through the water with even greater force in the finals.
She maintained third place from the start, picked up speed as she passed the 100m mark, and sequentially overtook the Chinese and Japanese swimmers to lead at the 150m turn.
She just lacked a bit of a finishing kick.
About 10 meters before the finish line, she was overtaken by Japan's Kato and touched the pad in second place by a margin of 0.12 seconds.
Although she missed out on the gold, Park clocked 2:22.69 to lower her own Korean record by 0.52 seconds. Overwhelmed by the emotion of her first individual medal and the bitter disappointment of narrowly missing the title, she shed tears for a long time.
[Park Si-eun / National Swimming Team Member: I missed first place by such a tiny margin, so I feel both a sense of relief and regret, and I miss my mom.]
Expressing her gratitude to her parents cheering from the stands, Park's eyes welled up again as she thought of her grandfather, who passed away around the time she began swimming.
[Park Si-eun / National Swimming Team Member: It felt like my grandfather was watching from where the Taegeukgi was hanging, so I missed him a lot, and tears welled up out of sheer gratitude to him.]
In the men's 800m freestyle, where Kim Woo-min withdrew due to a shoulder injury, the national team's youngest member Kim Jun-woo pulled off a surprise silver medal.
He passed the 700m mark in third place, but with a fierce final spurt, he touched the pad simultaneously with Japan's Tabuchi to tie for second place.
Kim Jun-woo shaved 2.17 seconds off senior teammate Kim Woo-min's Korean record to claim his first individual medal.
[Kim Jun-woo / National Swimming Team Member: I am just glad if I could soothe (Kim) Woo-min's disappointment even a little bit this way.]
The men's 400m freestyle relay team defeated Japan to capture the silver medal, propelled by a thrilling comeback race from final anchor Kim Young-beom.
Kim Woo-min, who had competed in the preliminaries despite a shoulder injury, shared in the joy from the stands.
The women's 800m freestyle relay team and Cho Sung-jae in the men's 200m breaststroke both secured bronze medals.
Having added five medals in a single day, the South Korean swimming team will continue its quest for more medals tomorrow across seven events on the final day of the six-day competition.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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