Park Tae Hwan starts training for the first time since ban

Olympic swimmer Park Tae Hwan, who failed a drug test last year, is back to training after receiving disciplinary action that suspended his athletic license for 18 months.

This past June 1, Park Tae Hwan started swimming practice with the members of Dreamers Swimming Class which is taught by his former coach and past national team director No Min Sang, at Seoul Songpa-gu's Olympic Swimming Pool. The swimmer signed up for No's class this past May 27 and entered the pool after being conferred an official membership card on June 1.

Ever since receiving disciplinary action, Park Tae Hwan couldn't properly carry on his usual training because a swimming pool with a 50m lane that meets the international standards wasn't readily available. The last time the swimmer practiced in a 50m lane was in October at the National Sports Festival. Because Park was having trouble finding adequate locations for practice, Korea Sports Promotion Foundation (KSPO) (the organization that runs the Olympic Swimming Pool) decided to provide training space at the Olympic Swimming Pool for Park after receiving consent from the parents of the students in No's class. Now Park is able to train at the pool for two hours a day, paying a fee of 300,000 KRW (around $281) like the rest of the regular members.

Last September 3, the day right before the opening of Incheon Asian Games, Park failed the drug test conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) because he tested positive for banned substances. The athlete blamed the negligence of the hospital that treated him for erroneously injecting him with shots that included those banned substances. However, after attending the FINA (International Swimming Federation) hearing, the swimmer's athletic license was suspended for 18 months and the medals he earned (1 silver and 5 bronze) at the Incheon Asian Games were stripped from him.

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