Hwang Seon-woo and Kim Woo-min, the main players of South Korea's golden generation of swimming, will start their first competition of the new year in order to challenge for two consecutive world championships. Hwang Seon-woo and Kim Woo-min will compete in the 2025 Korea National Swimming Representative Trials for six days at the Gimcheon Indoor Pool in Gyeongbuk from the 23rd to the 28th of this month.

The Gangwon Provincial Government team won the gold medal in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay at the 105th All Korea Games in October 2024. From the left are Hwang Seon-woo and Kim Woo-min.

The tournament is sponsored by KB Financial Group as the champion, and this year will be held under the name of "KB Financial Korea Swimming Championships" for the fourth consecutive year. Through this competition, the Korea Swimming Association will determine the 2025 National Swimming Representative Intensive Training Recipients, the Singapore World Aquatics Championships Candidates, and the Rhine-Ruhr Summer University Games Candidates for the Inland and Ruhr Summer University Games in Germany.

According to the regulations, each country will be able to send up to two people to compete in the World Championships if they meet the FINA standard record in each individual event. If there is no runner who passes the standard, one person can be selected as the national representative of the Korean Swimming Association.

Poster of the 2025 Korea National Swimming Representative Selection Conference

The 2025 Singapore World Aquatics Championships will be held from 11 July to 3 August. In February last year, South Korea won two gold medals and one silver medal at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar, setting a record high. Among them, Kim Woo-min won the men's 400-meter freestyle competition, and after Park Tae-hwan at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, he brought the world gold medal to South Korea swimming for the first time in 13 years. Huang Xuanyou won the men's 200m freestyle championship and won three consecutive World Championships medals in this event, following the silver medal at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest and the bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka. In addition, the Korean team consisting of Kim Woo-min, Hwang Seon-woo, Lee Ho-jun, Yang Jae-hoon and Lee Yo-yeon won silver in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay final, which was also the first time in the history of Korean swimming to win a medal in the relay event at the World Championships.

Kim Woo-min won a bronze medal in the men's 400m freestyle at last year's Paris Olympics, and after Park Tae-hwan (two silver medals) at London 2012, a South Korean swimmer has become an Olympic medalist for the first time in 12 years.

Kim Woo-min won the gold medal in the men's 400m freestyle at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha.

Hwang Seon-woo and Kim Woo-min will now be back on the starting platform. In order to challenge for the second consecutive championship of the World Championships, the two will accelerate the pace of the national representative selection competition. The representative selection tournament was the first appearance of the new year for both Hwang and Kim Woo-min, and it was also the first time in five months that they participated in the FINA Swimming World Cup held in Incheon in October last year.

Huang Xuanyou was very happy after winning the men's 200m freestyle at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha.

In this competition, Huang Xuanyou will participate in the men's 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle competitions. Kim Woo-min submitted applications for the men's 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle. Lee Ho-jun, a silver medalist in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay at last year's World Championships, will compete in the 200m freestyle and 400m freestyle, Yang Jae-hoon will compete in the men's 50m and 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly, and Lee Yoo-yeon will compete in the men's 100m freestyle. South Korea's men's backstroke champion Lee Joo-ho will compete in the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke races to win the right to participate in the World Championships.