Park Tae-hwan wins race in long-awaited return

South Korean swimmmer Park Tae-hwan races in the men’s 1,500m freestyle event at the 88th Dong-A Swimming Competition in Gwangju on April 25, 2016.

GWANGJU, April 25 (Yonhap) — Former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan won a race in his first competition in nearly 18 months on Monday.

Park captured the men’s 1,500m freestyle race at the 88th Dong-A Swimming Competition in Gwangju, some 330 kilometers south of Seoul. He clocked 15 minutes and 10.95 seconds.

It was 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. He had earlier tested positive for testosterone.

Monday’s time was well short of Park’s personal best of 14:47.38, set in February 2012 in Australia.

The Dong-A meet doubles as the second round of the national team trials for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics. Park was well inside the “A” Olympic qualifying standards of 15:14.77 set by FINA, the world swimming governing body, but he has already been ruled ineligible for Rio by the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC).

Under a 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, despite facing criticism of double punishment, has stated it wouldn’t create exceptions for particular athletes.

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.

In Gwangju, Park will race in the 200m freestyle on Tuesday, followed by 400m freestyle on Wednesday and 100m freestyle on Thursday.