Swimming World Championships: Adam Chillingworth sets record for Hong Kong, Ian Ho makes 50m freestyle semi-finals
- Hong Kong’s Adam Chillingworth sets record for city, but fails to make progress through the men’s 200m breaststroke heats
- Ian Ho progresses through to the men’s 50m freestyle semi-finals, but narrowly missed out on making Saturday’s final
Hong Kong swimmer Ian Ho Yentou narrowly missed out of the men’s 50m freestyle final at Friday’s swimming’s short-course World Championships in Melbourne.
Ho clocked in a time of 21.04 seconds to finish in fourth place in the second semi-final of the day. Jordan Crooks of the Cayman Islands and Great Britain’s Benjamin Proud set the quickest time heading into the finals, which takes place Saturday evening.
It was also a bittersweet day for Hong Kong’s Adam Chillingworth, who set yet another record for the city in the men’s 200m breaststroke heat, but failed to progress past the heat stages.
Chillingworth shaved 0.67 seconds off his personal best, set in October at the Fina World Cup in Toronto, but was edged out of the final eight.
Daiya Seto of Japan went on to claim gold in the final ahead of USA’s Nic Fink and Qin Haiyang from China.
It’s has so far been mixed results for Hong Kong at the short-course event, with star swimmer Siobhan Haughey the sole medal winner in Melbourne.
Earlier in the week Haughey took silver in the 100 metre event, finishing behind Australia’s reigning Olympic champion Emma McKeon, who had been the fastest qualifier for the final.
Defending the title she won in Abu Dhabi a year ago, Haughey clocked 50.87 seconds – 0.1 sec behind McKeon. She and the Australian pulled clear of the rest in the second half of the race but McKeon was able to maintain her lead.
Elsewhere on Friday, Chan Kin-lok crashed out of her women’s 50m freestyle heats, while Ng Lai-wa finished 15th overall in the women’s 1,500m freestyle.
Australian swimmer Lani Pallister continued her sterling performance, taking gold in the women’s 1,500 freestyle and adding to her gold medal haul that included the 400m and 800m freestyle events.
Hong Kong will have a number of chances over the weekend, including Ng Cheuk-yin who goes in his fourth and final individual event, plus Ng in the women’s 400m medley heats.
