Tokyo Olympics: Hong Kong crowds celebrate Siobhan Haughey’s second silver – but not everyone cheers Chinese flag
- Fans gather in their hundreds across the city to watch swimmer Siobhan Haughey become the first Hong Kong athlete to win two medals at the Olympic Games
- Police quietly move among the crowd, with a source saying they are concerned any booing of the China national anthem may contravene the national security law and national anthem ordinance
As the clock ticked to 9.59am on Friday morning, thousands of Hongkongers hit the pause button on their busy lives and glued their eyes to television screens or giant displays at shopping malls to watch Siobhan Haughey swim her way to another moment of glory for Hong Kong.
Half an hour before her swim, commuters stopped their morning sprints to the office and joined families and students on their summer holidays in forming crowds of hundreds inside Kwun Tong’s APM mall and the Olympian City shopping centre in West Kowloon, among other locations across the city.
Freddy Lee, a 26-year-old financial planner, went to the APM mall before work to watch Haughey’s race before going into the office. “I am a Hongkonger, and Siobhan Haughey has said such passionate and rousing words. I think everyone will be as nervous as she is. I really hope she can get this medal,” he said before the swim.
Fans in the malls burst into rapturous applause and loud cheers as Haughey powered across the pool. Sitting on artificial turf placed inside the mall, people at Olympian City waved multicoloured pom-poms, balloons and banners that read “Add oil, Siobhan” in Chinese.