Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey struggling to prepare for Tokyo 2020 amid lockdown
- ‘I don’t think athletes are preparing for the Games the way they wanted – I know I’m not’, says 22-year-old swimmer
- The former University of Michigan star is one of the top competitors in the world in the 200m freestyle
Haughey finished fourth in the 200m freestyle at the 2019 world championships in 1:54.89, two-tenths of a second behind Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, who won bronze. Haughey said right now it is tough to focus on getting ready at all, as it is almost certain the Games will be postponed.
Senior International Olympic Committee official Dick Pound said on Monday that a postponement was now inevitable. “My interpretation of the IOC’s communications is they don’t want to cancel, and they don’t think they can continue with the July 24 date,” Pound said. “So you’re looking at the ‘P’ word – postponement.”
“My training has definitely been affected a lot,” Haughey said about the worldwide lockdown which has taken place over the past few weeks due to the coronavirus.
“The university pool I swim in got shut down two weeks ago so I wasn’t able to train for a bit and I had to look for alternative solutions. Now I’m just training at my teammate’s club pool.”
