Park Tae-hwan returns home for 1st competition in 18 months

South Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan (L) walks through Incheon International Airport after returning from his training camp in Australia on April 21, 2016.

INCHEON, (Yonhap) — Disgraced former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan returned home Thursday to enter his first competition in nearly 18 months.

Park came from his training camp in Australia to prepare for the 88th Dong-A Swimming Competition starting Monday in Gwangju, some 330 kilometers south of Seoul, after putting in about a month of work Down Under. He is scheduled to compete in the men’s 100m, 200m, 400m and 1,500m freestyle races.

It will be Park’s first competitive appearance since the National Sports Festival in November 2014. Park served an 18-month international doping suspension that began retroactively in September 2014 and ended in March this year.

The competition will double as the second round of the national team trials for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics. However, Park is ineligible for the Olympics because of his doping history.

Under a Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) rule guiding the national team selection process, athletes who have served doping suspensions aren’t allowed to represent the country for three years, starting on the day their bans end.

The KOC had been under pressure to amend its rule because of criticism of double punishment. The KOC maintained that it would not create exceptions for particular athletes and announced earlier this month there would be no revisions. The situation put Park in limbo at age 26.

Park’s agency, Team GMP, earlier said the swimmer would not give interviews until after the end of the Dong-A meet. Park had a brief session with the media gathered at Incheon International Airport, saying he hoped his training in Australia would pay off.

“Since I’ve prepared hard for this event, I am going to do the best I can. Thank you,” Park said before leaving the airport.

Team GMP previously said Park had yet to decide on his future beyond next week’s competition, and that he may have to resume training overseas afterward.

Park won the 2008 Olympic gold medal in the 400m freestyle, and added silver in the 200m freestyle at the same Olympics. In 2012, he won silver medals in both the 200m and 400m freestyle races. Park remains the only South Korean, male or female, with an Olympic swimming medal, and he has also collected two world championships in the 400m free.

Park tested positive for testosterone and was slapped with a ban in March 2015. The suspension took effect retroactively to September 2014, when FINA, the international swimming governing body, collected Park’s urine sample.

His first race will be the 1,500m freestyle Monday, followed by 200m, 400m and 100m over the next three days.