Tokyo Olympics: Hong Kong crowds celebrate Siobhan Haughey’s second silver – but not everyone cheers Chinese flag

Fans gather in their hundreds across the city to watch swimmer Siobhan Haughey become the first Hong Kong athlete to win two medals at the Olympic Games

Police quietly move among the crowd, with a source saying they are concerned any booing of the China national anthem may contravene the national security law and national anthem ordinance

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Crowds gathered across Hong Kong to watch Siobhan Haughey claim a second Olympic silver medal, finishing second in the women’s 100m freestyle in Tokyo on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 4:26pm, 30 Jul 2021Updated: 5:38pm, 30 Jul 2021

As the clock ticked to 9.59am on Friday morning, thousands of Hongkongers hit the pause button on their busy lives and glued their eyes to television screens or giant displays at shopping malls to watch Siobhan Haughey swim her way to another moment of glory for Hong Kong.

They cheered at the top of their lungs when the swimming darling pushed off from the starting block for her 100m freestyle event in Tokyo and clapped and beat their cheer sticks until she won Hong Kong’s second silver medal and third overall in these Olympic Games – the most successful in the city’s history.

Half an hour before her swim, commuters stopped their morning sprints to the office and joined families and students on their summer holidays in forming crowds of hundreds inside Kwun Tong’s APM mall and the Olympian City shopping centre in West Kowloon, among other locations across the city.

Freddy Lee, a 26-year-old financial planner, went to the APM mall before work to watch Haughey’s race before going into the office. “I am a Hongkonger, and Siobhan Haughey has said such passionate and rousing words. I think everyone will be as nervous as she is. I really hope she can get this medal,” he said before the swim.

Fans in the malls burst into rapturous applause and loud cheers as Haughey powered across the pool. Sitting on artificial turf placed inside the mall, people at Olympian City waved multicoloured pom-poms, balloons and banners that read “Add oil, Siobhan” in Chinese.