Park Si-eun claims silver in women's breaststroke swimming

TOKYO — Park Si-eun claimed a silver medal in the women's 200-meter breaststroke swimming event at the Asian Games on Thursday. She finished with a new national record time of 2:22.69 at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, just 0.12 second behind Japan's Kotomi Kato, who won the gold. Park, 19, swam in Lane 5 and led Kato by 0.72 seconds at the 150-meter mark, but ultimately finished 37.41 seconds to Kato's 36.57 seconds. Zhu Leiju of China secured the bronze with a time of 2:25.51.

Park revealed that her passion for swimming was ignited after watching former swimmer Jeong Da-rae's gold medal performance in the same event at the 2010 Asian Games. Jeong remains the only South Korean to have won an Asian Games title in this event. Park expressed her dedication, stating, "I have trained so hard, not taking any day off even when my friends were enjoying their time away from the pool."

She admitted to being driven by the desire to win a gold medal and acknowledged that the effort she put into training was worth it. Park is now motivated to achieve even greater success, saying, "This has given me the confidence to strive for more."