Thorpedo?

South Korean sensation Park Tae-Hwan is gunning for Ian Thorpe’s 400m freestyle world record in Beijing

SEOUL:Fast rising South Korean star Park Tae-Hwan has been tipped as capable of beating Ian Thorpe’s 400m freestyle world record and his coach believes the mark will be challenged at the Beijing Olympics.

The teenager produced a storming finish to upset defending champion Grant Hackett and win the 400m title at the world championships in Melbourne last year and he has since set a new Asian record of 3:43.59.  Thorpe’s world best, set in 2002,
is 3:40.08.

Wayne Lawes, an Australian trainer Park used ahead of the world championships, said then that he was capable of swimming 3:40 and his coach Noh Min-Sang told AFP Friday it would need that sort of time to win Olympic gold. “I expect to see the winning time around three minutes and 40 seconds,” Noh said. “It won’t go past the 41-second mark.”

Hackett’s personal best of 3:42.51, set in 2001, is the second-fastest time ever behind the now retired Thorpe. Noh, who acknowledged the swimsuit’s benefits, said Park will don the half-body version rather than the full suit because the full-length version is too tight for his upper body.

Park burst onto the scene at the Asian Games in Doha in December 2006, where he won the 200m-400m-1500m freestyle treble which earned him a two-year, 3.2-million-US-dollar sponsorship deal with Speedo.

South Korea has never won an Olympic swimming medal before.