The 2018 FINA Short Course World Championships will have at least one less nation participating in the bi-annual event, as the country of South Korea will not be sending a squad to Hangzhou, China this December. The nation’s swimming federation confirmed to SwimSwam that the event, as is the case with most short course meters racing for the nation, simply isn’t a priority for the Korean swimmers.
Olympian Park Tae Hwan was the sole Korean competitor at the 2016 edition of the Championships, where he single-handedly drove the nation to 5th in the overall medal table. He earned gold across the 200m, 400m and 1500m freestyle events, clocking a new Asian Record in the latter.
This year Park bowed out of the prestigious Asian Games that take place quadrennially, but did win 5 golds at this year’s Korean Nationals that took place in October (LCM).
Even minus Park, Korea took home 6 medals in Jakarta at the 2018 Asian Games, including an individual gold, courtesy of Kim Seoyeong in the 200m IM. With no short course racing under its belt, the nation currently has zero swimmers ranked in the top 10 worldwide at this point.
I’m waiting for FINA to figure out a way to sanction Korea for this.