2023 WORLD AQUATICS SWIMMING WORLD CUP – BUDAPEST
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Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey collected her 200 freestyle Triple Crown in style.
She earned her crown with a new World Cup record, blasting a 1:54.08. That not only makes her 3-for-3 in 200 free wins at the 2023 World Cup, but 3-for-3 in 200 free World Cup records.
— SportMedia (@SportNMedia) October 21, 2023
Courtesy: SportNMedia (via Twitter)
As you can see from the race video, the 25-year-old Haughey wasted no time asserting herself in the race. She blasted out under world record pace in 26.51. She was the only swimmer in the field to open her race under 27 seconds.
Haughey was actually under Mollie O’Callaghan‘s world record pace for the majority of the race. She flipped at the 100-meter mark in 55.50, .44 seconds than O’Callaghan was in the 2023 Worlds final when she set the mark. O’Callaghan has a back-half race strategy, and the world record pace began to creep up on Haughey during the third 50.
Still, Haughey flipped with 50 meters to go .11 seconds under world record pace. The line got away from her in the closing 50, but Haughey’s 1:54.08 takes down the World Cup record by almost a second, bettering the 1:55.08 she swam at the Athens stop. Until two weeks ago, the World Cup record stood at 1:55.41, set by Katinka Hosszu in 2015.
In addition to being a new World Cup record, it’s an excellent October swim for Haughey. She was just .16 seconds off her personal best and Asian record 1:53.92.
Split Comparison
| Haughey – 2021 Olympics | Haughey – 2023 Budapest World Cup | Haughey – 2023 Athens World Cup | |
| 50 | 26.77 | 26.51 | 27.05 |
| 100 | 55.10 (28.33) | 55.50 (28.99) | 56.14 (29.09) |
| 150 | 1:24.18 (29.08) | 1:24.63 (29.13) | 1:25.86 (29.72) |
| 200 | 1:53.92 (29.74) | 1:54.08 (29.45) | 1:55.03 (29.17) |
You can see from the splits that in the last couple years–and even from Athens to Budapest–Haughey has been playing around with her race strategy. At the Tokyo Olympics, where she won her silver medal, it was the middle 100 that she really pushed her pace. That’s the part of the race where she led the Olympic final before tiring on the final 50, which gave Ariarne Titmus the room she needed to go by her and win gold.
But here in Budapest, even though Haughey opened her race faster than she did in Tokyo and almost matched her third 50 split, she still have enough left in the tank to come home in 29.45, .29 seconds faster than she did at the Olympics. Compared to her Athens race, she was on it from the start, out-splitting herself on every 50 except the last.
Haughey has a chance to earn a second Triple Crown tomorrow in the 100 freestyle. In Berlin, she blasted a 52.02 to become the #3 performer in history.
The recent progress in W200FR is probably the strongest among any other swimming disciplines male/female. With 1:54.08 that was a super elite time not that long time ago Haughey is barely sneaks into the list of best 20 performances ever. And this list has seven names of currently active swimmers. Just thirteen years ago this event was in deep stagnation.
I love watching Siobhan. One of my favourite swimmers.
(Just an FYI, Siobhán is 25 and she turns 26 end of this month)
Yes, so the article is correct. She is currently 25!
51 hundred free coming soon??
I think she’s the favorite to win 100 free in Paris.
I think it’s a bit too early to make that call. Mollie’s PB is 0.06 slower and she’s 6 years younger. I would say Mollie and Siobhan are probably equal favourites at this point, with Jack, McKeon and a few others as dark horses
Mollie needs to develop raw speed.
Mollie has been dropping serious time in both 100/200 year on year. She was a 53.0 and 1:55.0 swimmer in Tokyo, 52.6 and 1:54.0 last year and then 52.0 and 1:52.8 in Fukuoka. She still a teenager and won’t turn 20 until April next year. Until she starts plateauing, I’d say mollie is the fave for both her events in Paris, but I’d love to see her Siobhan and Emma all swim 51s in the final
Wouldn’t surprise me if we saw it tomorrow