Hwang Sun-Woo Sets Asian Record in 200 Free, Downs Sun Yang Mark
Hwang Sun-Woo set the Asian record in the men’s long-course 200 freestyle on Monday, posting a time of 1:43.92 at the National Sports Festival.
Hwang’s time made him the seventh-fastest performer in history. He downed the Asian record set at the 2017 World Championships by Sun Yang at 1:44.39 in Budapest.
Hwang’s swim came at the Sajik Indoor Swimming Pool at Busan Sports Complex. He lowered his national record from 1:44.40, which he’d set at the Asian Games in 2023. He won the National Sports Festival title in the event for the fourth straight year.
“This is one of the happiest moments of my life,” Hwang said in a press conference, as reported by the Yonhap News Agency. “Throughout my swimming career, I have tried to pierce the 1:44 threshold in the 200m freestyle. I finally made it.”
Second in the race was fellow Olympian Lee Ho-Jun, who was well back of Hwang’s pace in 1:47.72.
Hwang’s time is the fifth-fastest in the world in 2025, trailing two by David Popovici and two by Luke Hobson. At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, Hwang finished fourth in 1:44.72, with Popovici taking gold, Hobson silver and Tatsuya Murasa of Japan going 1:44.54 in a national record for bronze. Hwang, 22, won the world championship in the 200 free in 2024. He was the silver medalist at the 2022 World Championships and won bronze in 2023.
He finished ninth at the Paris Olympics in 2024, a pain that surfaced in his tears on the podium on Monday.
“Today, memories of all the hard times came flooding back, and tears just kept flowing,” Hwang said.
Hwang also owns the short-course men’s 200 free Asian record, set at the World Short-Course Championships in 2022.
Sun, the twice-suspended Chinese Olympic gold medalist, maintains just two long-course Asian records, in the 400 free and 1,500 free.
Hwang will also swim the 200 individual medley and on the 400 freestyle relay at the National Sports Festival.
