Siobhan Haughey in better shape than expected for her comeback at Mare Nostrum, coach says
Tom Rushton says four-time Olympic medallist looks ‘surprisingly good’ for someone who took four months off
Hong Kong’s four-time Olympic medallist Siobhan Haughey is in better shape than expected ahead of her first international competition since coming back from a prolonged swimming sabbatical, her coach has said.
Tom Rushton, who coached Haughey to two bronze medals at last year’s Paris Olympics, has been putting the 27-year-old through her paces at an altitude camp in Andorra as she prepares to compete at the Mare Nostrum Swim Tour, which starts on Saturday.
The Mare Nostrum is a three-part annual Mediterranean meet that stops in Monaco on Saturday and Sunday, before moving to Barcelona on the 21st and 22nd, and finishing in Canet-en-Roussillon on May 24-25.
“In terms of training, I would say she looks surprisingly good for somebody who took four months off,” Rushton said. “She’s definitely better than I would have expected an athlete to be after a four-month break.
“But I think she holds herself to high standards, and if she’s not doing her best training ever, she’s always disappointed. I think it’s to be expected that she’s not going to be at her best, and she shouldn’t be.”
Haughey has not competed internationally since winning a gold at the short-course world championships in Budapest in December. By then, she had announced that she would take a break from the sport in the new year to assess her future.