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Siobhan Haughey won all three Mare Nostrum legs in the 100 and 200 metres freestyle. Photo: AFP

Mare Nostrum Swim Tour: Siobhan Haughey finishes first overall to sound warning for worlds

  • Hongkonger tops women’s classification with seven event wins after completing victory in all three legs in 100 and 200 metres freestyle
  • She is backed to swim faster at July’s World Championships, at which she will be chasing her first long-course world medal
Swimming

Siobhan Haughey sounded a warning to her World Championships rivals as she finished the Mare Nostrum Swim Tour with seven event victories to finish first overall in the women’s classification.

On the last day of the three-stop meet’s final leg in Monaco on Sunday, the Hongkonger came home in front in the 100 metres freestyle in 52.88 seconds.

It was the 25-year-old’s slowest time of the Tour, but completed a clean sweep after she won in 52.85 in Canet-en-Roussillon then in 52.50 – a world-leading time for the year – in Barcelona.

Haughey also won all three legs of the event in the 200m, rounded off on Saturday with a meet record of one minute, 55.30 seconds. Her other first place had come in the 50m freestyle in Barcelona in midweek.

 

Counting the best result from each of the three rounds, Haughey topped the women’s classification, well ahead of second-placed Lara van Nierkerk of South Africa and Ingrid Wilm of Canada in third.

Her Hong Kong teammate Adam Chillingworth finished third in the 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:12.72. Ippei Watanabe of Japan came first in 2:09.41. Watanabe finished first in the men’s classification.

The week left Haughey poised to challenge for the podium places at the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan in July. She will be seeking her first ever long-course world medals, having missed last year’s edition in Budapest because of injury and finished fourth in the 200m freestyle in South Korea in 2019.

Hong Kong Sports Institute’s swimming head coach Chen Jianhong holds out hope of Haughey showing further improvement in Japan.

“We won’t set any medal target at the World Championships, but she is in really good form,” he said. “The aim of the Mare Nostrum was to raise her level through competitions, and she did better than expected.

“She will probably swim faster in Fukuoka.”

Hong Kong swimmers Haughey and Ho meet A qualifying standard for Paris Olympics

The coach voiced sympathy for youngster Cindy Cheung Sum-yuet, who fell ill after arriving in southern France for the meet’s first leg.

“She only joined the meet in the second leg, but was not in her best condition,” Chen said. “Her target will be the junior World Championships in August and the Asian Games in September – she won’t take part in Fukuoka.”

The 16-year-old is one of three swimmers from Hong Kong so far to achieve the “A” qualifying standard for the 2024 Paris Olympics, having done so in the 200m backstroke.

Cheung won the B final in that event in Monaco in 2:13.99 after finishing 16th overall in the previous leg in Barcelona.

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