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Swimming
SportHong Kong

Mare Nostrum Swim Tour: Siobhan Haughey stirs memories of Tokyo with 2023’s fastest time to win 100m free in Barcelona

  • Hongkonger clocks world-leading time in second leg of the Mare Nostrum Swim Tour as she continues her form from the first leg in France
  • The only two occasions Haughey has swum faster 100m times came at the Tokyo Olympics

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Siobhan Haughey’s 100m time at the Mare Nostrum Tour in Barcelona was her third fastest ever. Photo: Getty Images
Mike Chan

Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey produced close to her Olympic medal-winning pace to clock the fastest 100 metres freestyle time in the world this year at the Mare Nostrum Swim Tour in Barcelona.

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Haughey’s 52.50 seconds to win the 100m final on Wednesday’s opening night not only picked up where she had left off at the weekend in the tour’s opening leg in the south of France. It was also faster than she has swum anywhere bar the Tokyo Olympics two years ago, when she took silver over that distance as well as in the 200m.

Having won the 100m in Canet-en-Roussillon days earlier, the Hongkonger produced a time of 53.53 in the heats at Barcelona’s Club Natació Sant Andreu, 0.2 seconds faster than Dutch rival Marrit Steenbergen, to qualify fastest for the final.

That margin was expanded considerably in the evening’s final as Haughey came home first, her season-leading 52.50 well in front of 23-year-old Steenbergen, in second in 53.45.

Haughey’s time placed her ahead of Australian swimmer Mollie O’Callaghan, who previously held the season’s fastest time of 52.63, set on April 17.

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It was also Haughey’s third-fastest time in the event ever, behind only her Olympic times of 52.40 in the Tokyo semi-final and her personal best of 52.27 in the final.

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