Lee Ji-hyun (swimmer)

Lee Ji-hyun (also Lee Ji-hyeon, Korean: 이 지현; born June 27, 1978) is a South Korean former swimmer, who specialized in backstroke and individual medley events. She won the bronze medal in the medley relay at the 1994 Asian Games, and later represented South Korea in two editions of the Olympic Games (1996 and 2000). Lee started her competitive swimming, as a 16-year-old teen, at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japan. She helped the South Koreans earn a bronze medal in the 4×100 m medley relay with a time of 4:22.11. Lee made her first South Korean team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. There, she failed to reach the top 16 final in any of her individual events, finishing eighteenth in the 100 m backstroke (1:03.96), and twenty-eighth in the 400 m individual medley (4:59.52). In the 4×100 m medley relay, Lee, along with Lee Bo-eun, Byun Hye-young, and Park Woo-hee, placed eighteenth from the prelims in 4:18.98. At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Lee swam only in the 400 m individual medley. She achieved a FINA B-cut of 4:48.76 from the Dong-A Swimming Championships in Ulsan. She challenged seven other swimmers in heat four, including Ukraine's top medal contender Yana Klochkova. Coming from behind at the final turn, she edged out Malaysia's Sia Wai Yen with a robust freestyle kick to save a seventh seed in 4:58.94, just ten seconds below her submitted entry standard. Lee failed to advance into the semifinals, as she placed twenty-third overall on the first day of prelims.