'Preliminary 1st Place' Jo Seongjae, 12th in 200m Breaststroke Semifinals... Final Bid Falls Short [Paris Olympics]

Jo Seong-jae (23, Daejeon City Hall), the first Korean swimmer specializing in breaststroke to reach the Olympic semifinals, failed to advance to the final.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 31st (Korean time), Jo Seong-jae finished 12th out of 16 in the men's 200m breaststroke semifinals at the 2024 Paris Olympics held at the La D?fense Swimming Center in Paris, France, with a time of 2 minutes 10.03 seconds. He was just 0.14 seconds behind Joshua Yong (Australia), who barely qualified for the final in 8th place.

Earlier, Jo Seong-jae advanced to the semifinals by ranking first overall in the preliminaries. In the preliminaries, he touched the pad with a time of 2 minutes 9.45 seconds. If he had matched his preliminary time in the semifinals, he could have advanced to the final, but unfortunately, his time dropped significantly in the semifinals.

Jo Seong-jae previously set the highest Olympic ranking for Korean swimming in this event by finishing 19th in the men's 200m breaststroke at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.