HAUGHEY KEEPING PARIS GAMES PRESSURE AT BAY

World champion sets Hong Kong 800m freestyle record after choosing to experience the nerves of something different and the pain of a longer swim

Siobhan Haughey may be among Hong Kong’s best hopes for a medal at the Paris Olympics, but the world champion swimmer said she did not want the pressure of thinking about the Summer Games right now.

And the double Tokyo silver medallist revealed a benefit of the 800m freestyle event in Hong Kong at the weekend was to experience the nerves that came with something different, and the pain of a longer swim.

Better known for her exploits over shorter distances, the 200m freestyle short-course worldrecord holder knocked almost two seconds off the city’s previous best over 800m of eight minutes, 41.66 seconds, set by Stephanie Au Hoishun at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

“As much as it was really painful at the end, I’m actually really glad I did it, because I’m so used to doing the same events all the time,” Haughey said, after her Long Course Swimming Invitational Trial II race at the Hong Kong Sports Institute on

Saturday. “Even if I do the 100m breaststroke or the 100m butterfly, they are still in my range, but the 800 is just like something completely different.”

At the World Aquatics Championships in Qatar in February, Haughey won bronze in the 100m breaststroke. But she is better known for the freestyle, winning the 100m and 200m Olympic silver in Tokyo in 2021, and gold at both events at last year’s Asian Games.

Haughey said she rarely covered longer lengths in training, but believed the experience would only benefit her.

“Because I’ve never done the 800m, I get to be nervous before my race and see how I can handle that. It’s good preparation for the big meets that I have coming up.

“Being able to finish an 800 and also negative splitting it, meaning my second 400 is faster than my first 400, it’s a good sign that my aerobic capacity is where I want it to be,” Haughey said.

Haughey flew off the block in Saturday’s race, finishing the first 100m in one minute and 1.89 seconds. She then backed off for 300m, averaging about 1:06 per 100m, before hitting the gas and finishing each of the next three 100m in under 1:05.

Her final two lengths of the 50m pool were over in 1:05.51, enough to set a Hong Kong record.

“I think in my races, typically my back half is one of my weakest things, or I guess my competitors, their back half is really good, so we’ve been really working on the second half of the race,” she said.

“So I think being able to do the negative split in the 800m free is a good sign heading into Paris. Because the last 50m of my 200m or the last 25 of my 100 is so painful. I think if I can endure the pain that I feel at the end of 800 I can do the same in the 200 and the 100.”

Haughey will be in Europe next week to prepare for the Mare Nostrum, a series of three swim meets in France, Spain and Monaco that starts on May 25.

She will return to Hong Kong after that to continue her Paris preparation, before heading to the opening ceremony on July 26. Haughey said Paris was not her main cause for concern just yet.

“It’s not really on my mind right now which I think is a good thing,” she said. “Because one, I just want to treat it like another big meet and I don’t want to make it feel like it’s this special once every four years, biggest competition of my life kind of thing.

“I feel like that would be a lot of pressure.”

I don’t want to make it feel like it’s this … biggest competition of my life kind of thing

SIOBHAN HAUGHEY