Tokyo Olympics: Siobhan Haughey, made in Hong Kong – former coaches recall silver star’s early years
- Five of Haughey’s previous swim coaches in Hong Kong open up about the early development of the city’s first double Olympic medallist
- Ex-mentor Fasching believes she has an ‘intrinsic’ sense of motivation, while Borja says she ‘was the first and last swimmer in and out of the pool’
Colman Wong sent a group of young swimmers home from the South China Athletic Association (SCAA) in Hong Kong after practice back in 2007 with a homework assignment: the coach wanted them to write out their swimming dreams, goals and aspirations.
One of those kids was 10-year-old Siobhan Haughey, and Wong recalled she returned promptly the following day with her piece of paper and handed it straight to him.
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“It said she wanted to go to the Olympics,” said Wong. “And get to the final.”
Wong was one of the first coaches to identify raw talent in a young Haughey, then just another swimmer at the SCAA in Causeway Bay. However, he was offered a job in Australia in 2010, but before leaving he recommended Haughey join the Harry Wright International (HWI) swim school, Hong Kong’s premier training ground for aquatics, mentioning her to head coach Michael Fasching.
Fasching first took the reins of her development when she was 12 years old, as Haughey joined his elite swim group. Fasching, still a coach at HWI – based out of the SCAA – said Wong was great in helping her transition and gave him detailed training documentation on what he and Haughey had been working on over the previous two years, calling it a “perfect handover from one coach to another”.
One of the earliest markers for Haughey’s natural talent was a jump height test Fasching oversaw in 2011. The test was conducted by Marvin Johnson (now a senior swim coach at ESF Sports), and it compared athletes’ scores against statistically derived heights of swimmers in the same age group.