Paris Olympics 2024: Siobhan Haughey wanted ‘nerves and pain’ of 800m race as preparation for Summer Games
- The 100m and 200m Tokyo Olympics silver-medallist set a Hong Kong 800m record at Hong Kong Sports Institute on Saturday
- Covering the longer length allowed her to ‘get to be nervous’ before racing and see how she handled that before Paris
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 that a benefit of switching to the 800 metres freestyle at the Hong Kong trials last weekend was experiencing 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 world-record holder knocked almost two seconds off the city’s previous best over 800m of eight minutes, 41.66 seconds, set by Stephanie Au Hoi-shun 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 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.
