Park Tae-Hwan is carrying the hopes of South Korea into this week’s world swimming championships and has chosen to tune up at Haileybury College’s Keysborough pool over the past month.From left, Haileybury Waterlions head coach Wayne Lawes, swimming superstar Park Tae-Hwan and his coach Park Seok-Ki have formed a great bond during the South Koreans’ stay.By Marc McGowan
THE world swimming championships are preparing to kick into gear at Rod Laver Arena, but for the past month the Haileybury Waterlions have had an early taste of the action.
But it has not come in the form of a Waterlion, a Victorian or even an Australian. for that matter.
The club’s Keysborough base has been abuzz with South Korean dynamo Park Tae-Hwan, who has taken the swimming world by storm in the past 12 months.
At 17, Park is already a man-mountain and powers through the water with the smooth strokes of a champion.
Park chose Haileybury College’s renowned pool for his final tune-up before thrusting himself onto the big stage at the world championships, which start on Saturday.
He qualified for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, but showed his inexperience when he was disqualified for an illegal start.
Fast forward to 2006 and it was obvious that Park was a different swimmer with no fear of the considerable names surrounding him on the blocks.
At the Pan Pacific Championships in Canada in August, the talented teenager rocketed himself to stardom with gold medals in the 400m and 1500m freestyle, and added silver in the 200m freestyle for good measure.
It was then that Haileybury head coach Wayne Lawes first took notice of the South Korean.
“I was very impressed with him in Canada. He was just 16 and the way he raced the Americans showed a lot of maturity,” Lawes said. “He blew them out of the water in the last 50 (metres). It was outstanding.”
Park was not content with just that.
He set a personal best of 15:06.11 in the 1500m at the Pan Pacific Championships, and just four months later obliterated that mark in becoming the first Asian swimmer to break the 15-minute barrier.
His scintillating 14:55.03 swim came at the Asian Games in Doha in December, where he obtained another Asian record in the 200m freestyle. Those two performances were among three gold, one silver and two bronze medals Park captured at the event on his way to being named the swimmer of the meet.
To put his 1500m effort into perspective, Australian superstar Grant Hackett won the Australian title in the same month with a slower time of 14:56.01.
In fairness, Hackett’s world record of 14:34.56 is still light years away from every other swimmer in the world, let alone Park, but the latter has well and truly announced himself.
He will be among a quarter of challengers, including American Larsen Jensen, Russian Yuri Prilukov and Britain’s David Davies, who are bidding to end the great Queenslander’s dominance in the 30-lap marathon.
Park’s coach Park Seok-Ki, who has been in charge of his protege for the past two months, said it may be a little early for his swimmer to challenge Hackett.
“Grant Hackett is a very big swimmer and (Park) is very young. (We are expecting him to peak at) 22 or 23,” he said.
“(He’ll just) try and get his best time.”
While Lawes was amazed by Park’s feats at the Pan Pacific Championships, his opinion of the swimmer has risen further since being able to watch him from close quarters.
“He’s quite a talent and a great person to be around. He’s very polite and has a great aura about him, actually,” he said.
“He’s a very good technician and obviously has a great mental capacity.”
