Women’s swimming sensation Kim Seo-young will try to reach her fourth World Aquatics Championships final in her specialty event, the women’s 200-meter individual medley.
Kim touched the touchpad in 2:13.85 in the women’s 200m individual medley preliminaries on the first day of the 2024 World Aquatics Championships at the Aspire Dome in Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday to finish 10th out of 25 swimmers and book her ticket to the semifinals, which are reserved for the top 16 swimmers. The semifinals will take place at 1 a.m. on Wednesday, where the top eight finishers will advance to the final on Thursday.
Kim, who was assigned lane 3 of three, led the field in the butterfly and backstroke before fading a bit in her weaker event, the breaststroke, and chased down the strong breaststroker Kate Douglas (USA), the 2020 Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist in this event, as much as she could in the next lane, lane 4.
She finished third in her heat behind Douglas (2:10.01) and Anastasia Gorvenko (ISRAEL – 2:12.76) and 10th overall.
Kim represented South Korea in women’s swimming at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta-Palembang, where she won gold with a national record of 2:08.34. At the World Championships, she reached the final three times (2017, 2019, and 2022), finishing sixth overall. However, she failed to reach the final at the Fukuoka World Championships last year after falling in the semifinals, but she redeemed herself at the same event at the Hangzhou Asian Games, where she won a bronze medal over two Japanese swimmers, Mio Narita and Yui Ohashi.
“It’s my first race of the year, so I didn’t really know what pace to go at, but when I ran, I think it wasn’t too bad,” Kim told Xinhua in the joint press area after 카지노 qualifying. I think if I focus on it in the afternoon, I can get a better result,” she said.
When asked if she was trying to stay as close as possible in the breaststroke, she replied, “Douglas, the guy next to me, is obviously a very strong swimmer in the breaststroke, so I didn’t want to fall off. I’m happy with my overall pace and how I felt, because I still qualified,” he said.
“I think I was a little bit disappointed in the semifinals at the World Championships last year, so this time I think if I focus well in the afternoon, I’ll be able to make the final,” he said, looking forward to returning to the World Championships final for the first time in two years.