Meet Hong Kong Olympic swimmer Camille Cheng: the multicultural athlete is competing at her third Games in Paris 2024, and she’s also a Lululemon ambassador and mental health advocate
- Born to French and Taiwanese parents, Cheng lived in Beijing, Hong Kong and California; after making Olympic A time in 2015 at the US nationals, she competed at the Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016
- She has a psychology degree from UC Berkeley, where she trained under coach Teri McKeever and, along with swimmers Stephanie Au and Jamie Yeung, founded Mind the Wave to promote youth mental health
This edition of the Olympics proves to be especially meaningful as Cheng will be competing, in a way, on home turf, as she’s born to Taiwanese and French parents.
Cheng, 31, has dedicated over two decades of her life to the sport, having begun swimming at a young age while attending French International School in Hong Kong. Born and raised in the city during her formative years, her upbringing exposed her to a diverse and international perspective.
Following her family’s relocation to Beijing, she swam and attended the International School of Beijing before entering the University of California, Berkeley, to further pursue her education and athletic career.
Cheng had always set her sights on the Olympics, training under the California college’s Olympic coach, Teri McKeever, and swimming alongside a teammate who’d already made their debut at the global competition – Sara Isakovic, who won a silver medal for Slovenia before studying at California.
At the 2015 United States National Championships, she made an Olympic A time for the 200-metre freestyle, and the next year she competed at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She also became one of only three women representing Hong Kong to achieve that time, alongside Siobhan Haughey and Yvette Kong Man-yi.
Along with dedicating herself to rigorous training, she also became interested in sports psychology and positive psychology, and graduated with a psychology degree in 2015.