Swimming sensation Park Tae-hwan won his first gold medal of this year at the 2009 Janet Evans Invitational Swim Meet held in Irvine, California.

He snatched the victory by finishing with a time of 1:47:43 in the men’s 200-meter freestyle event.

But Park’s finish was two seconds later than his time recorded at last year’s Beijing Olympics.

In the 400-meter freestyle event, South Korea’s swimming star took second to Tunisia’s Mellouli Oussama.

Park will swim in the final of the 1,500-meter freestyle event Monday.