Panda-loving Haughey dresses up as cuddly bear to celebrate birthday, gets surprise party
Hong Kong Olympian wows crowd at Swimming World Cup in Singapore by entering arena dressed up as her favourite animal
Siobhan Haughey donned an inflatable panda costume before coming third in the women’s 50 metres freestyle, and was thrown a surprise birthday party by her Hong Kong teammates when they returned from racing at the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Singapore.
Haughey, who turned 27 on Thursday, got the biggest laugh of the night from the 3,000-strong crowd at the OCBC Aquatics Centre after entering the venue in her panda outfit.
The Olympian came third in an event she said she was “doing for fun” in exactly 24 seconds. Katarzyna Wasick from Poland was first in 23.23 and China’s Yang Junxuan came third in 23.89.
And the Hongkonger said she dressed up as the national animal of China because she loves the cuddly bears. Good thing too, because she got plenty of panda-related presents.
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Panda-loving Haughey dresses up as cuddly bear to celebrate birthday, gets surprise party
“I love pandas, and actually, today I got a lot of panda gifts,” Haughey said. “So I guess it was meant to be, I had to wear a panda costume. I got a panda teddy bear, I got a panda night light, and then I got a crochet of a panda on a birthday cake.
