A coach on the Australian men's Olympic swimming team, by the name of Michael Palfrey, has received national backlash from his own country regarding some comments he made when being interviewed by a South Korea TV network.
That is to say, Palfrey went on the record openly admitting that he actually hopes Korean swimmer Kim Woo-min wins gold while competing in the Olympic 400m freestyle event, which is a race that also features Australian swimmers.
"I really hope he [Woo-min] can win, but ultimately I really hope he swims well," Palfrey said, while continuing on to say, "Go Korea."
These words didn't sit well with the head coach of the Australian Olympic swimming team, Rohan Taylor, as he called it "Un-Australian."
"Very disappointed. Extremely disappointed," Taylor said. "For a coach on our team [Palfrey] to promote another athlete ahead of our athletes is not acceptable."
"We confronted him with those details," Taylor continued. "He owns that (wrongdoing) and was taken to task for it. He's very remorseful and we're now dealing with it... It's just very, very disappointing to me that one of our coaches promoted another athlete ahead of our athletes. That really is the thing that concerns me and disappoints me."
All in all, it has later been reported that Palfrey only was saying this because he is Kim's former coach, which makes a little more sense.
The Australian Olympic Committee released a statement regarding this matter, saying that Palfrey made a "serious error of judgment," but he will remain on the coaching staff.
Notably, Kim was the 2024 men's 400-meter freestyle world champion, and is indeed one of the front-running favorites to win gold at the Paris Games, while Australia also has two previous world champions in Samuel Short and Elijah Winnington, who have history competing against the South Korean swimmer.
Elijah Winnington wins silver (left); Kim Woo-min wins gold (middle) at 21st World Aquatics Championships Doha 2024
The men's Olympic 400-meter freestyle race will feature Kim (South Korea) and Short (Australia) in heat 4; the start time is set for July 27 at 5:45 am ET.
