Darach Haughey had the best intentions for his two young daughters, resulting in some rather fortuitous unintended consequences.
“They were growing up in Hong Kong, which is an island,” said Darach, referring to Siobhan and older sister Aisling. “So there are opportunities to get out on the water, go sailing or go on a junk. And if you go out on a boat, you’re going to be more relaxed if you know how to swim.”
Darach said he and wife Canjo cannot take much credit as parents, given those early intentions helped make his younger daughter one of the top 200m freestyle swimmers on the planet, while the other swam for Trinity College’s Intervarsity squad in Ireland.
“I wasn’t a tiger dad in that respect,” he said, “it was purely to give them a life skill.”
Growing up in Happy Valley, the Haughey family had a pool in their building, which is where the two girls first started taking lessons with a lifeguard. After that Darach said they sent their daughters off to the South China Athletic Association’s (SCAA) facilities in Causeway Bay. It was there a four-year old Siobhan started putting up a fuss about getting in the pool.
“I didn’t enjoy it at all,” said the 21-year-old, who is of Irish and Chinese descent. “I thought it was very boring, just swimming up and down the pool, and I would cry every time I went.”
Canjo persisted in typical parenting fashion, said Siobhan, noting it was not up for discussion.
“I remember my mom saying ‘We signed you up for these classes, just attend them, just learn how to swim.’ And I was like, ‘No, I don’t like this’.”
Siobhan had some very understanding coaches who were patient with a crying child, and eventually, she said, a dreaded trip turned into something she began to look forward to.
“I think after a while I saw those swimming lessons as a chance to see my friends, rather than to learn how to swim. And so at that age, when you have friends with you everything seems more enjoyable.”
“I remember thinking, ‘Maybe this isn’t too bad after all’.”
Peaking at the worlds
As Tokyo 2020 nears its one-year countdown (July 24) and the Fina World Championships kick off in Gwangju, South Korea, on Saturday, Haughey appears to be peaking at the perfect time. A mysterious foot injury that at times has forced her to withdraw from some events now seems under control. She returned home from the US, where she is a student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to Hong Kong in early April and qualified for the world championships and Tokyo 2020 in the 100 and 200 metres freestyle on the same day.
It is in the 200m freestyle that Haughey’s Olympic medal hopes will be. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Haughey made the semi-final, finishing 13th overall, and has since shaved close to two seconds off her time, ranking sixth in the world (1:56.05). The event is filled with heavyweights – American prodigy Katie Ledecky, who has five Olympic gold medals and is only 22, will be lining up against Haughey and is not even the favourite.
Many swimmers describe the 200 freestyle as one of the most difficult events, given the perfect blend of speed and endurance required. That test invariably draws the best of the best looking to prove themselves as premier swimmers.
Former coach Michael Fasching, the performance director and head coach at Harry Wright International Ltd, a well-known swimming club in Hong Kong, said once Haughey gets to Tokyo and readies for her marquee event, all bets are off.
“I think this will be the main goal,” said Fasching, “because once she gets into the final, anything can happen.”
Fasching remembers those days close to a decade ago at the SCAA when he first noticed Haughey and her ability in the pool. In fact, everyone started noticing her.
“I think it was in 2010 when she was 12, and at that point it was already very obvious that she was a very special swimmer.”
Fasching said two things made her stand out. Haughey had the perfect build to be a swimmer and was mentally strong.
“Her physical attributes combined with tremendous discipline, there weren’t many other athletes who were as disciplined and focused as she was.”
Darach said coaches would come up to him and Canjo in the stands, raving about their younger daughter on a daily basis at the SCAA.
“She was good at moving in the water as she floated higher up in the water,” said Darach. “The lower you are in the water the more drag your body creates, so if you can maintain a high position you can go faster.”
He remembers one coach telling him his daughter, then 10, would do well at international level.
“Of course, anyone can say that,” he said. “You never know at that age, you just have to see how it will play out.”
Haughey herself used a different marker when it came to solidifying the idea she might have talent as a swimmer. As a young girl, life was still a bit of a battle of the sexes.
“In practice when I started beating the guys, that’s when I thought, ‘I might be good at this’.”
Off to college
As the question of higher education approached, Darach said his two daughters had diverging ideas on where to go to university.
“Siobhan really wanted to study in the United States, and Aisling wanted to go to school anywhere but the States.”
While Aisling, 23, settled in Darach’s hometown of Dublin and now works as a physiotherapist, Siobhan made two trips to California in 2014, scouting various schools, but didn’t feel as if it might make a good second home. She originally picked the west coast because of its warm climate but found little connection to the schools she visited. Over on the east coast, fellow Hongkonger Claudia Lau Yin-yan was already swimming at the University of Michigan. Haughey got emails from the coaches in Ann Arbor through Lau and started chatting back and forth.
“The more I talked to them the more I realised Michigan was perfect for me,” said Haughey, “because I could swim and study. Michigan is a really great school and also has a really great swim programme.”
Lau sealed the deal in October 2014, inviting Haughey to Skype with the entire Michigan squad. Haughey said she was sold during the video chat, feeling an immediate bond with what would be her future teammates.
“I Skyped with them that morning and then that night I told the coaches, ‘Yeah, I’m going to Michigan as I felt a connection with the whole team’.”
Climate-wise, Michigan is worlds away from Hong Kong. Winters in Ann Arbor, west of Detroit where the campus is located, have such notorious temperatures the university has an article on its undergraduate admissions website titled: “Frozen hair and what to wear: A survival guide to winter at Michigan.”
Haughey said her maiden snowfall was awesome.
“Freshmen live in the dorm and I still remember one Saturday morning it started snowing for the first time and all of the freshmen who don’t live in Michigan were excited and saying, ‘It’s snowing!’ So the first week it was really fun. And I have seen snow before but I hadn’t seen that much snow.”
The winter wonderland novelty soon wore off.
“After a while I was kind of fed up with it, you know, ‘This is so cold I need to go back to Hong Kong’. Definitely all of my winter clothes now, everything is bought in Michigan because all the Hong Kong clothes cannot stand this weather.”
Haughey graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology this year with the intention of taking her master’s and becoming a clinical child psychologist. She is based in Michigan and working at a part-time job in her field when not training or competing.
Haughey said a developmental psychology class helped her narrow down her idea of a career after swimming.
“I’d say I’ve had a very happy childhood and I’d say through my classes and reading about what’s happening in the world I’ve realised a lot of kids don’t get to experience the world that I did or have the childhood that I had. In becoming a child psychologist, hopefully I can help these kids in any way possible.”
This would be helpful back home, where recent studies have noted one in three young Hongkongers suffer from stress, anxiety or depression, according to a Hong Kong Playground Association survey. The city is also notorious for its relentless lack of work life balance which parents invariably pass on to their children.
“I know a lot of kids in Hong Kong are very stressed, whether it’s from school, or other kids or their peers. And hopefully becoming a child psychologist dealing with their stress will help benefit them in the future.”
Haughey said her comfortable upbringing also shaped her as a swimmer and helped her stay calm under pressure. A recent article in Swimming World Magazine detailed an 80-hour journey that saw Haughey hop on an early morning flight from Detroit to Hong Kong on April 12. She got home after 15 hours in the sky, had dinner with her family, went to bed, then got up to smash a Hong Kong record and qualify for the world championships and the Olympics in the process.
Then she got on a plane the next morning and headed back to Michigan, where she went straight to the school’s athletic banquet to receive the Big Ten Medal of Honour. During this whole time frame she was also studying and writing papers for classes.
Haughey said her resolve and solid upbringing has given her the ability to zone in and accomplish goals with a heightened sense of discipline.
“I haven’t experienced a lot of terrible things in my life so when I swim I get to just focus on swimming. I don’t have to be distracted by a lot of things. And I think staying focused definitely helps me with my swimming.”
After the world championships, Haughey will get the opportunity to call herself a professional swimmer as she will suit up for DC Trident in the International Swimming League, which will kick off its inaugural season in October in Indianapolis, Indiana. Haughey will join teammate Ledecky and travel the world competing in events almost every weekend from October to December against the top female swimmers in the world.
Kaitlin Sandeno, an Olympic gold medallist, six-time world champion and former world record holder, will be the general manager for DC Trident.
Sandeno used three words in describing Haughey: “versatile”, “leadership” and “spirit”, noting “I can’t wait to see what she does in the pool for our team, as well as on the Olympic stage next year.”
Haughey said there is one weekend she has circled on her calendar, although more for personal reasons as she is also a foodie at heart.
“One of our meets will be in Naples, Italy, and I love pasta and pizza and tiramisu. So I’m very excited about all the food that I can eat there.”
Eye on Tokyo
When it comes to the 200m freestyle next year at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, Haughey said the goal is more abstract than one might think.
“I have to understand as I’m improving everyone else is improving, and the 200 freestyle is a very competitive event and a lot of top swimmers do swim in it.”
When she gets in the pool against heavyweights like Ledecky, Haughey will have a wealth of experience under her belt, but does not want to get bogged down in a results-based mindset.
“I feel like my main focus is just to work on my details, work on how I can improve every day and less about the placing I will get in Tokyo and more so about how am I going to execute this 200 freestyle. What will my splits be, how good are my turns, my start? Every small detail, because I think if you work on those small things bit by bit, eventually it will add up.”
That does not mean she does not allow herself to dream about stepping on to the podium on the biggest sports stage in the world, once in a while. Haughey does have a stable of supporters who think she can make a splash in Tokyo too. Lau, in passing the torch onto her, said she wouldn’t be surprised if her younger counterpart snags an Olympic medal.
“She is a talented but also hard-working swimmer. She takes swimming very seriously and knows how to take care of her body and conditions, always comes to the pool early before the race to perform a series of warm-ups and stretching movements and possibly that’s why she can be so successful.”
Haughey, in typical level-headed fashion, both accepts and downgrades the pressure of being Hong Kong’s hope in the pool in one year’s time.
“If I can get a medal, of course that would be great. I know this is my second Olympics but I also don’t want to give myself too much pressure because if I overthink it, that’s when I under perform. So I just want to go in, stay calm, relaxed, but also enjoy the whole experience.”
