Siobhan Haughey has added a couple of chapters to the history books this year: she became the first swimmer ever claiming Olympic medals for Hong Kong, China (silvers in Tokyo, 100-200m free) and, now, here in Abu Dhabi, she became her country’s first-ever swimming world champion.
ABU DHABI (UAE) – Siobhan Haughey achieved this in style by setting a new world record (1:50.31) in the women’s 200m Freestyle.
We caught up with the freshly crowned world-record-holding world champ just after her performance inside the Etihad Arena.
I don’t know if you have already checked your splits, but here they are.
Let’s see… Oh, nice… Typically my third 50 is always the slowest so I tried to focus on that now and based on the splits you can tell I really worked on that third 50 so I’m really happy about that.
Would you expect to break the world record, or this is something one should not advertise in advance?
I knew I was close to the world record, I got close recently a few times and everyone around me kept telling me I could do it. I just tried not to think about that as all I wanted to do is really focus on my race plan; how I was going to swim well. I think that was the right thing to do, not think too much about the record, just focus on what I have to do.
I know for swimmers a perfect race does not exist – though a world record swim might be considered one.
I’d say that it was close to it. The whole race happened pretty quickly. Honestly, I don’t really remember too much about it, but I’m sure there are things I have to work on, things I can slightly improve. Though it was a pretty good race.
Can we say that 2021 is a lucky year for you?
I think it’s one of the best years I’ve had so far. Hopefully, it’s not the best year yet because I’d still want more good things to happen in the future.
Source: FINA