Park Tae Hwan dominates Men’s 400m freestyle heat: Day one – 2012 NSW State Open Championships
Olympic gold medallist and South Korean star, Park Tae Hwan dominated the Men’s 400m freestyle qualifying rounds on initial day of the 2012 New South Wales (NSW) State Open Championships at the Sydney Olympic Aquatic Centre on Friday, February 10.
The 22-year-old Tae Hwan, who won 400m freestyle gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, outperformed his competitors by securing top spot in his pet event.
The Olympic champion confronted strong resistance from the 19-year-old David McKeon throughout the eight-lap freestyle event, but with his epic performance, he managed to edge him out over the finishing wall and secured fastest qualification spot in the
playoff.
Tae Hwan bossed his opponents from the start and completed his first round of the race in a wonderful time of 55.20 seconds. He was shadowed by McKeon, who enveloped same distance by clocking a time of 55.61 seconds.
The battle continued in second round, where Tae Hwan smothered all struggles of his closest competitor and ended his first half of the race by posting a time of 1 minute and 53.74 seconds. In contrast, McKeon remained exactly one second slower from the hot
favourite Tae Hwan and posted an effort of 1 minute and 54.74 seconds in the first half.
The South Korean veteran continued his dominance in the third round, where he covered initial 300 metres of the race by submitting an effort of 2 minutes and 51.75 seconds while McKeon covered the same in 2 minutes and 53.32 seconds.
The crowd witnessed elevated efforts of McKeon in the final round, but he failed to overcome South Korean’s invincible efforts as Tae Hwan went full rampant in the last two laps of the race and ended his race in a top ranked time of 3 minutes and 50.06 seconds.
He was followed by McKeon, who stayed just 0.86 seconds slower from his former finisher and completed his swim in a time of 3 minutes and 50.92 seconds. The third spot of the race was secured by Ryan Napoleon, who ended his swim in 3 minutes and 52.96 seconds.
The final round of the 400m freestyle will take place in Friday’s second session while the crowd could not wait to see nerve-wrecking performance of these athletes in the playoff.
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