Qualified for the final with 39.71 seconds, 1st in the heat and 3rd overall... Final on September 1st morning
The South Korean men's junior 400m relay team advanced to the final of the World Junior Athletics Championships (under 20) for the first time in 32 years.
On the 31st (Korean time), South Korea ran in the first heat of the men's 400m relay preliminaries at the World Junior Athletics Championships held in Lima, Peru. The team, consisting of Kim Jeong-yoon (Korea National Sport University), Namadi Joeljin (Gimpo Science High School), Kim Dong-jin (Daegu Physical Education High School), and Hwang Ui-chan (Gwacheon City Hall), finished first with a time of 39.71 seconds. Among the 31 teams divided into four heats, the first-place team in each heat automatically qualifies for the final.
South Korea edged out France, which ran 39.73 seconds, by 0.02 seconds. Overall in the preliminaries, South Korea ranked third behind Jamaica (39.54 seconds) and Thailand (39.56 seconds). These four promising South Korean male sprinters set a brilliant milestone by advancing to the men's 400m relay final at the World Junior Athletics Championships for the first time in 32 years since the 1992 Seoul competition.
Through the Korea Association of Athletics Federations, they said, "It was our first time competing in a world championship, so we were nervous, but the team members' coordination was really good, which led to a great record. We want to coordinate once again in the final and show our potential on the world stage with a good result." The Korean team is assigned to lane 6 in the final, which will be held at 7:50 a.m. on September 1, and will challenge themselves to break their record once more.
Initially, the Korea Association of Athletics Federations introduced, "The 39.71 seconds set by the Korean team in the preliminaries is a new Korean record under 20 years old, improving by 0.61 seconds from the 40.32 seconds recorded at last year's Asia Junior Athletics Championships in Yecheon." The World Athletics also marked 'NU20R' on the record sheet, indicating a national under-20 record. However, after internal discussions, the Korea Association of Athletics Federations corrected the original announcement, stating, "It is difficult to consider this as a Korean record under 20 years old." This incident arose due to differences in record management systems between World Athletics and the Korea Association of Athletics Federations.
World Athletics manages records based on age categories: under 18, under 20, and overall records. In contrast, the Korea Association of Athletics Federations has managed records based on school system categories: elementary, middle school, high school, university, general, and overall records. A representative of the Korea Association of Athletics Federations explained the reason for the correction, saying, "There are not many domestic or international records accumulated yet for under 18 and under 20 age groups, so it is difficult to classify Korean records based on age. Our federation is preparing to follow the World Athletics record management system. Recently, we have been actively promoting participation in Asian or world competitions for under 18 and under 20 age groups, and records are accumulating."
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