Stephanie Au shakes off Hong Kong airport protest chaos to qualify for Olympics in Singapore
- Au breaks her Hong Kong record in 100-metres backstroke final at Singapore World Cup series to claim bronze medal and Olympic qualifying standard
- Part-time model had to talk protesters into allowing swimming team to go through check-in area and reach gate on Tuesday night
On Friday night at the World Cup series in the Southeast Asian state, Au shattered her own Hong Kong record in the women’s 100-metres backstroke final to collect a bronze medal.
Her time of one minute and 0.22 seconds bettered not only the 1:00.38 marks she set at the Asian Games in Jakarta last summer, but also made the A qualification standard of 1:00.25 for next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo. Emily Seebohm of Australia won the gold in 59.43, followed by Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu who clocked 59.48.
So far only star Siobhan Haughey has reached the required standard in both the women’s 100m and 200m freestyle for the 2020 Tokyo Games, even though both Haughey and Au are part of the women’s 4x100m and 4x200m relay teams that also qualified at the World Championships in Gwangju last month.
It will be Au’s fourth appearance at the Olympics since her 2008 Beijing Games debut when she represented Hong Kong as a 16-year-old. She was also the flag bearer for Hong Kong at the 2016 Rio Games where she also appeared in the relay, though not in any individual events.
Au’s trip was almost made impossible following the protests at the Hong Kong International Airport earlier this week, but the part-time model talked the protesters into allowing the team to go through the check-in area and reach the gate as their hopes for next year’s Olympic Games hinged on the event.
