Kim Woo-min claimed the bronze medal in the men’s 400-meter freestyle swimming at the Paris Olympics on Saturday, becoming just the second Korean swimmer to have reached an Olympic podium.
Kim finished third with a time of 3:42.50 at Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, just west of Paris, giving Korea its second medal of this Olympics.
Lukas Maertens of Germany grabbed the gold medal in 3:41.78 after leading the race the entire way. Elijah Winnington of Australia took home the silver medal in 3:42.21, after trailing Kim most of the way and then nipping him at the finish.
This was the very first medal race in swimming at the Paris Olympics.
Kim, the 2024 world champion in the 400m freestyle, has joined Park Tae-hwan, a four-time medalist, as the only two Korean swimmers with an Olympic medal.
Park won the 400m freestyle gold in 한국을 2008 and then won silver in that event in 2012. He also added silver medals in the 200m freestyle in 2008 and 2012.
Kim swam in Lane 1, after squeezing into the final as the seventh-fastest among the eight qualifiers from the heats in the morning.
But as he had done so in the heats, Kim had the fastest reaction time at the start with 0.62 second, but Maertens beat him to the 50m pad by 0.16 second at 24.84.