The Michigan women’s swimming rebuilding process just got another huge shot in the arm with a verbal commitment from Hong Kong junior Siobhan Haughey, who confirmed the news to SwimSwam on Saturday.
Haughey is one of the top 18 & under sprinters in the world and holds the Hong Kong National Record in the 50 free in long course meters (25.38).
That swim was done at last year’s Junior World Championships, which was Haughey’s big breakout meet. She took bronze there in the 50 free and gold in the 100 free in 54.47, the latter of which was a Meet Record and stood as the initial Junior World Record standard in the event.
Haughey came away 5th in the 50 free and 2nd in the 100 free at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games last year, though neither swim bettered her times from the Junior World Championships.
Converting those World Junior Championship times to yards results in around a 22.2 in the 50 and a 47.6 in the 100, which would immediately make her one of the top sprinters in the Big Ten and an NCAA qualifier.
Along with Catie DeLoof and Becca Postoll, Michigan head coach Mike Bottom is bringing in another class that is changing the face of Michigan women’s swimming, much like he did last fall (this year’s freshmen). At this rate, it won’t be long before the Wolverine women join the men as perennial top-5 contenders.
I believe Geoff Cheah (HKG), Junya Koga (JPN), Wu Peng (CHN), and others have trained with Mike Bottom as post-grads.
Great recruit for Michigan!
As noted earlier, lots of Hong Kong swimmers have swam for McKeever at Cal. The lack of language barrier makes an easier transition for swimmers from Hong Kong, but it is somewhat surprising that other Asian swimmers have trained in Australia and America, but very few have competed for American colleges. Kanako Watanabe would be a force at NCAAs.
You’ve also got Claudia Lau from Hong Kong on the women’s team.
She can’t sign a letter for 13 months; I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up at Cal!
I thought she can sign in November. 13 months, the season would have started??
U of M’s student body is typically about 13% Asian, and a lot of that is foreign Chinese, Korean, and Japanese students. So not as big of an Asian population as you get at the UCs, but significant enough that you can find shops and restaurants that cater to that student population.
..but you can’t beat the Chinese food in the Bay Area!
Her father is Irish so perhaps she will be looking for Paddy’s Corner pub !
Beachie – you really made a supposition there . Aka vanilla racism. ( just joking) .
She is getting out of Hong Kong .
she’s a huge get. best of luck to her at michigan!
Very talented and smart young woman with a bright future ahead of her. Conventional wisdom had Haughey leaning towards the traditional HK-Berkeley route, so this is a killer scoop for Bottom!
Very much look forward to Siobhan’s participation in NCAAs as she has some serious chops in short course, not just LCM, and has scoring potential in the IMs to boot.
Congrats to Siobhan & Mike!