What a waste! Hwang Sun-woo in the 0.18th second, fourth in the 200m freestyle, and four consecutive podiums failed

Jul 29, 2025

What a waste! Hwang Sun-woo in the 0.18th second, fourth in the 200m freestyle, and four consecutive podiums failed



'Defending Champion'Hwang Sun-woo (22, Gangwon Provincial Government) narrowly missed the podium for the 4th consecutive World Swimming Championships.

In the men's 200m freestyle final at the 2025 World Championship Arena in Singapore on the 29th (Korea time), Hwang Sun-woo hit the touchpad with a time of 1:44.72 to rank fourth among eight athletes.

What a waste! Hwang Sun-woo in the 0.18th second, fourth in the 200m freestyle, and four consecutive podiums failed
Hwang Sun-woo, who shot his personal best of the season at 1:44:84 in the semifinal the previous day and advanced to the final after Luke Hobson of the U.S. at 1:44:80 of the year, registered his best record of the season, registered in lane 5. Hobson was placed in lane 4, followed by David Popovich of Romania, who had the best record of 1:42.72, the gold medalist at the Paris Olympics (1:44.72) and the best record of 1:42.97 in lane 6. Hwang competed strongly from the beginning between Popovich (1:43.64) and Hobson (1:43.73), who recorded the world's 1st and 2nd place '43:'. He ran the first 50 meters. However, it fell to third place after 100 meters and fell to fourth place by giving up third place to "Japan's 18th Shinsung" Tatsuya Murasa. He missed the podium in fourth place by 0.18 seconds. Popovich came in first, Hobson came in second, and Murasa came in third.




The Korean record for the men's 200m freestyle was 1:44:40, which Hwang Sun-woo set at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games. It was 0.32 seconds apart from his own, but he missed the medal due to the struggles of Japanese Shin Seong. Hwang Sun-woo pledged to win the podium for the fourth consecutive time in this tournament by reaching the podium for three consecutive times in Budapest in 2022, Fukuoka in 2023 and Doha last year (Friday).

Hwang, who missed the medal in the main event, now focuses on the team event. Kim Woo-min, Lee Ho-joon and Kim Young-beom will once again challenge for the fourth consecutive podium in the 800m relay on the 1st of next month.






This article was translated by Naver AI translator.