South Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan has set an Asian record in the men's 400-meter freestyle at a local competition Friday.

At the event held in the southeastern coastal city of Ulsan Friday, the 19-year-old came in first with a time of three minutes 43:59 seconds. He broke the previous record of 3:44:30 that he set about a year ago.

Park was about half a second short of the contemporary world record of 3:43:15 set by Australia's Grant Hackett. The all-time world record set by Jim Thorpe still stands at 3:40:08.