Paris, France, July 31, 2024: Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong, China won the fourth Olympic Games medal of her career at the Paris La Defense Arena on Wednesday night.
Haughey added the women’s 100m freestyle bronze medal to the bronze she had won earlier in the week in the 200 free. This followed her two silver medals in these events at Tokyo 2020.
Sweden’s world record holder Sarah Sjoestroem won gold in 52.16 seconds, ahead of the United States’ Torri Huske in 52.29, 0.13 seconds behind. Haughey was third in 52.33.
Haughey, 26, lists Sjoestroem as her swimming idol and said the two had engaged in a friendly conversation after the race.
“Before the medal ceremony, she was telling me she went to her first Olympics when she was 14, and she said she came 27th in her race. Look at her now, standing on top of the podium,” Haughey said.
“It's insane for someone to have such a long and amazing, successful career. She also inspires a lot more swimmers to keep going.
"In the past, the trend was to retire when you're around mid-20s, but you have her and all these other older athletes going well past their 30s. They're still producing best times and still doing amazing things. I think she's a trendsetter.”
Haughey added: "I think my training is a little different than what most swimmers would do. Instead of just training in one pool all year round, we kind of do training camps all over the world to make things fun and interesting.
"We find high-level competitions around the world, so that we get more racing experience and just get used to change in environments, just getting used to sudden change and what happens with being outside their comfort zone.
“There's a lot of learning curve in that, but also it just makes things different and fun. It just made the whole experience a lot more enjoyable. Even though training is hard, you don't really feel like that because it just feels like you're having fun with your friends and travelling around the world together.”