Lee Eun-ji (17-Bangsango) will attempt to become the first South Korean swimmer to reach a World Championships final in the backstroke.

Lee Eun-ji finished 14th overall out of 41 swimmers in the women’s 200-meter backstroke preliminaries at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships with a time of 2:11.78 on Monday at Fukuoka Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall in Fukuoka, Japan, and qualified for the semifinals, which will be contested by the top 16 swimmers.

Lee, who finished 19th in the 50-meter backstroke and 18th in the 100-meter backstroke, qualified fourth in her heat and 14th overall in the 200-meter backstroke.

No South Korean athlete has ever reached the World Championships final in the backstroke.

In her semifinal at 8:20 p.m., Lee will look to qualify for the final (eight swimmers) and break the Korean record (2:09.49 by Lim Dassol). Lee’s personal best is 2:09.72.

In the men’s 50-meter freestyle preliminaries, Ji Yoo-chan (Daegu Metropolitan City Hall) finished 24th out of 119 swimmers with a time of 22.17 and failed to qualify for the semifinals.

Ji narrowly missed breaking the Korean record (22.16) held by Yang Jae-hoon (25-Gangwon Provincial Office).

Kim Young-beom (17-Gangwon Chego) competed in the men’s 100-meter butterfly, finishing 31st in 52.80 seconds.

Handa Kyung (23-North Korea Sports Federation), the Korean record holder in the women’s 800-meter freestyle (8:39.06), finished 26th out of 34 in 8:43.68. There will be no semifinals in this event.

“Living Legend” Katie Rudecky (26-USA), who won five consecutive titles in the event from Barcelona 2013 to Budapest 2022, qualified for the final in 8:15.60, first overall.

If Ludecky wins the final on Monday afternoon, she will win her 16th individual gold medal at the World Championships, surpassing Michael Phelps’ (38-USA) record of 15 individual gold medals.

Including the team event, the medley relay, Rudecki (20 gold medals) will move into a tie for first place on the women’s gold medal list with Artistic Swimming’s Svetlana Romanina (RUS), 카지노사이트킴 who has 21 gold medals.

The record for most individual and team gold medals at a World Championships is 26, held by Phelps.