Cover Siobhan Haughey reacts after winning the Women's 50m freestyle final during the China Open Swimming Championship in Shenzhen in March. (Photo: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Siobhan Haughey reacts after winning the Women's 50m freestyle final during the China Open Swimming Championship in Shenzhen in March. (Photo: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
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Driven by Siobhan Haughey’s summer form and a fencing squad seeking redemption, Hong Kong heads to the Aichi-Nagoya Games for its biggest test yet
In May 2026, Siobhan Haughey closed out the Mare Nostrum Tour—an annual series of swimming meets—with four golds and four silvers across three legs, in Monaco, Canet-en-Roussillon and Barcelona. In Canet, she touched the wall in the 200m freestyle in 1:54.13, a quicker time than the one that won her Olympic bronze in Paris less than two years ago. A month later, in Rome, she took the Sette Colli Trophy 200m freestyle by more than two seconds, adding a silver in the 100m free to her tally the following day. And then, in August, she took two more freestyle golds, in the 50m and 200m, at the Hong Kong Open Swimming Championships. Between the three meets, she was rarely off a podium all summer.
Haughey arrives at Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 on some of the best form of her career, and with a full autumn still ahead of her. The event runs from September 19 to October 4, and swimming is among the earliest events on the programme, so her Hong Kong fans don’t have to wait too long to find out whether that European form travels.
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Hong Kong’s swimming hopes
Above Double Olympic medallist Siobhan Haughey enters the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in career-best form as she defends her 100m and 200m freestyle titles
Haughey doesn’t need Aichi-Nagoya to taste Asian Games glory. At Hangzhou in 2023, she delivered Hong Kong’s first-ever Asian Games swimming golds, in the 100m and 200m freestyle, and left with six medals overall. She returns this September defending both titles.
But the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games are not a priority in themselves; they’re the last major form check before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Haughey, Hong Kong’s most decorated Olympian in any sport, won two silvers at Tokyo 2020 and two bronzes at Paris 2024. At the Los Angeles Olympics, when she will be 30, there’s no doubt she’ll have her eye on the one Olympic medal colour that has eluded her so far: gold.
Every stroke at the Asian Games in Japan this autumn will be read, fairly or not, as evidence of where that longer chase stands—whether the form that carried Haughey through a European summer can hold for two more years, and whether the gap in an otherwise unmatched Hong Kong career is closer to closing.
Fencers eager to recalibrate
Above Ryan Choi comes out on top in an epic bout against Miles Chamley-Watson in the World Fencing League Debut in Los Angeles
Haughey won’t be shouldering Hong Kong’s expectations alone, although she might be the athlete with the most confidence, given her recent wins.
Hong Kong’s fencers will be looking to go one better than their last major out. At the Kerry Fencing World Championships—held on home soil at AsiaWorld-Expo in July—the men’s foil team reached the final, but lost to Italy. Ryan Choi, a former individual world champion now ranked seventh globally, lost the decisive bout to Italy’s Guillaume Bianchi, and head coach Greg Koenig was seen consoling him afterwards. Cheung Ka-long, a two-time Olympic foil champion, was part of the same near-miss.
That result has sharpened the expectation around them. A year ago, Choi was the toast of Hong Kong fencing, winning the men’s individual foil title at the World Championships in Tbilisi to become the city’s first-ever fencing world champion. Cheung, already a two-time Olympic gold medallist, remains the standard the rest of the squad is measured against. Together, they represent Hong Kong’s most successful fencing generation—and they are expected to prove themselves again in Nagoya.
Hong Kong’s fencers won a record nine medals at the last Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023, with Cheung among the gold medallists—what head coach Zheng Kangzhao calls, “a very huge number”. History rarely repeats on command, and Hong Kong’s most decorated fencing generation now has to prove Tbilisi and Hangzhou weren’t a ceiling.
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All eyes on the windsurfing team
The squad heading to Japan runs deeper than its two biggest storylines. Four windsurfers will travel to Nagoya, introduced to media at a press conference in early August. Cheng Ching-yin, a bronze medallist at Hangzhou, and Ma Kwan-ching, a silver medallist at the previous two Games, lead the group. Behind them are two debutants, Wong Tsz-ho and Cheung Tsz-yuet, competing in an under-19 windsurfing category being introduced at the Asian Games for the first time.
It’s a small detail, but a telling one—proof Hong Kong’s sporting pipeline isn’t just producing champions, it’s already building the next generation to replace them.
And that’s not all
Beyond the individual medal chases, Hong Kong fields teams across a wide sweep of sports at Aichi-Nagoya, with July’s draw finally confirming who stands in the way.
In rugby sevens, Hong Kong’s men open in Group A alongside mainland China, Malaysia and Uzbekistan, while the women face a tougher pool in Group E against mainland China, India and Malaysia. Football sees the men drawn into Group A with hosts Japan, Thailand and Kyrgyzstan, and the women into Group G against mainland China, the Philippines and Uzbekistan.
The men’s water polo team lands in Group A alongside Thailand, Kazakhstan and Japan. Handball sends Hong Kong’s men into Group B with Bahrain, Kuwait, South Korea and Iran, and the women into a group against Japan, South Korea, Kazakhstan, mainland China, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Cricket’s men’s side goes straight into the qualifying stage of Group B, alongside Malaysia and Oman, with the top two advancing to face seeded nations India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In volleyball, Hong Kong’s men were drawn into Pool D with South Korea, mainland China and Chinese Taipei, and the women into Pool D against Vietnam, South Korea and Qatar.
And Hong Kong’s women’s basketball team opens Group C against South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Mongolia, with games running from September 17 through 22 ahead of the knockout rounds.
The team events serve as a reminder that Aichi-Nagoya doesn’t just belong to Haughey, Cheung and Choi. It’s one of the broadest Hong Kong squads assembled in years, with medals—and simple wins—on the line across sports beyond the pool and the piste.
Pete Laverick is a sports and lifestyle journalist for Tatler Hong Kong. A former professional rugby player, he brings an athlete’s perspective to his coverage of the city’s sports and fitness scene. A committed fitness enthusiast, Pete is always testing something new—from Hyrox to marathons and triathlons—writing with the first-hand insight of someone who has lived at the top level of sport. He also has a standing invitation from Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeannie Buss to watch the Lakers at the Crypto.com Arena if he makes it to California.
