Suspended former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan is scheduled to return home on Saturday from a Japanese training camp with hopes of competing in next year’s Summer Games still up in the air, informed sources said Friday.
Park, serving a doping ban, began training in Japan in September, after struggling to find proper facilities at home. In March, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the men’s 400-meter freestyle received an 18-month ban from FINA, the international swimming governing body, after testing positive for testosterone the previous fall. The suspension began retroactively on Sept. 3, 2014, the day FINA collected his samples.
Under FINA’s anti-doping policy, Park isn’t permitted to train at facilities operated by the government or by his national swimming federation. He had been working out at a public pool in Seoul since June, but he could only train there two hours a day.
Park, 26, had been scheduled to work out at Hosei University in Tokyo but ended up in Osaka instead. He was later joined by his long-time coach Roh Min-sang.
Read Yonhap News Agency
