Siobhan Haughey leads Hong Kong’s quest for historic first medal at World Championships in UAE short-course event
- Having won two Olympic silvers at the Tokyo Games last summer, Haughey is in medal-winning form after helping her team Energy Standard to ISL glory
- Hong Kong’s previous best at the Worlds was a fifth place by Kenneth To in 2018 Worlds, the year before he died from a heart attack
Double Olympic medallist Siobhan Haughey is hoping for another breakthrough performance for Hong Kong when she leads a 16-member squad for the short course World Championships in Abu Dhabi next week.
The city has never won a medal at the Worlds and Haughey, who collected two historic silver medals for Hong Kong at the Tokyo Olympics, has the speed and form to earn a podium place in Abu Dhabi based on her recent performances in the International Swimming League (ISL).
“We are quite confident although we do not want to predict the colour of the medal,” said Hong Kong Swimming Association honorary secretary David Chiu Chin-hung, who is delighted by the number of Hong Kong swimmers who have qualified for the Worlds.
“Our previous best result was a fifth place in the Worlds and Haughey stands a good chance to improve on that, especially in the 200 metres freestyle as most of her rivals have already been in the ISL.
“It will be also interesting to see if Haughey can break the world record for the event after coming so close in the ISL.”
Two weeks ago in Eindhoven, the Netherlands the 24-year-old clocked a personal best of one minute and 50.65 seconds to win the 200 metres freestyle for her team Energy Standard in their last play-off of the ISL season, which is also a short-course competition.
