By Terin Frodyma on SwimSwam
Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey is one of the world’s top freestylers, even when she is not at 100%. At her final long-course meet of the season, Haughey brought home four medals (two gold, two silver), even after years of injury recovery and aging in the sport.
“There was a special meaning for me to remain on top of the podium in back-to-back Games, especially after I’ve been through quite a lot over the past few years,” Haughey said in a report from the South China Morning Post after winning the 100 free at the Asian Games in 52.45. “I have had an extended break, then there were injuries, and it’s not only that, because when you look at the current trends in the swimming world – where more and more very young teenagers are swimming incredibly fast and achieving impressive results – it’s truly not easy to get back to, and maintain that level after a few years.”
Haughey added that the changes she underwent during recovery, including her training, were harder to manage than she initially realized.
“The changes in me had to be the most difficult part, be it my mindset or my recovery ability, so the training methods I used in the past, I simply couldn’t go back to using them,” Haughey said. “The issue is that, while those past methods were what got me to this peak level, my body really can’t keep up with that kind of training anymore. We have to keep changing and finding new ways – by reducing the training volume – to figure out how to maintain this high level of performance while swimming less.”
Beyond the physical changes Haughey had to make, some of the bigger obstacles were mental.
“My recovery is not as fast now, plus the injuries, so every time I think of needing or wanting to make up for the training I missed, there were a lot of mental adjustments required too,” Haughey said in the report from the South China Morning Post. It’s really about how to wait patiently for my recovery, without feeling like ‘Oh no, I haven’t trained much over the past two weeks, how am I going to catch up?’”
Her coach, Tom Rushton, who has been with Haughey since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, understands that as athletes age, it becomes harder to stay at the highest level.
“With any athlete, as they age, recovery becomes more important. They don’t bounce back from things; we all know this as we get older… Life becomes a little bit harder, but at the same time, you become a little bit smarter and wiser about how to manage things. The younger athletes in my group do 10 sessions per week in the water, and that’s what Siobhan did between Tokyo and Paris.” Rushton said in the report from the South China Morning Post. “Now, the older athletes are shifting down to nine sessions, and that was a change we made after the [last] Olympics. It’s about focusing on the volume of fast swimming, not the volume of total swimming.”
Haughey is currently competing on the Silk Road for the World Aquatics World Cup, where she has already won both 200 freestyle stops (SCM) in 1:51.08 and 1:51.02, respectively, with a potential triple-crown bonus waiting for her this week in Kazakhstan.
Looking ahead, Haughey remains motivated to make an impact on international podiums.
“The focus now is more on the race strategies and their execution, and making sure I still enjoy my daily training and competition to the fullest. I will be giving myself so much pressure if it’s a time-sensitive target….I am motivated by the process, not the result. This is how I have always thought, only even more so in recent years, when you were younger, without many medals or records, you were always chasing a time standard and that worked back then.” Haughey said. “But at this stage, I prefer not to put so much pressure on myself to maintain my training and competition schedule. So instead of focusing on results, it’s better to focus on what can be done each day.”
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