Paris Olympics: Hong Kong swimmer Chillingworth backed to break record, qualify for Games

The Sette Colli, Italy’s Olympic qualifying event, takes place from June 21 to 23 and represents Chillingworth’s last chance at earning a place at what would be his first Games.

“I feel very confident that Adam will swim a new Hong Kong record and faster than he ever has before, whether or not that will be under the qualifying time, I’m quietly confident,” Trigg said.

“It’s a big ask and I hope he puts it together on the day, but nothing’s guaranteed.”

Chillingworth is the Hong Kong record holder for the 200m breaststroke, with a time of two minutes, 11.16 seconds.

The Olympic qualifying time for that event is 2:09.68 and although Chillingworth’s personal best is 1.5 seconds shy of that, Trigg said a combination of hard work and the conditions in Rome could get him over the line.

“Adam’s doing everything; he’s training brilliantly, and he looks great,” Trigg said. “Just to put it in perspective, when he set the Hong Kong national record [at the Pro Swim Series in Texas], it was after a really tough altitude camp.

“Generally after training at altitude, you’re pretty beat up. So for Adam to set a Hong Kong record there, it really does bode well, especially because now he’s going to taper.”

According to Trigg, athletes tended to swim faster at the Sette Colli because of the timing of the trials.

“As you’re going through the season, the volume, load and intensity of the training starts to reduce, and you start to come closer to that taper, throughout this time, you’re generally going to start swimming faster,” he said.

“For most, the Sette Colli will be the last meet before the world championships in other years or the Olympics every four years.”

And the British swimmer-turned-coach said the pool in Rome was “notoriously fast”.

“A fast pool is a bit of psych thing because obviously every pool is 50 metres and there isn’t a current or anything, it’s just a lot of world records have been set in that pool,” he said.

The speed of a swim can be affected by a number of different factors, including filtration, depth, gutter design, temperature, lane width and starting blocks.

Trigg began working with Haughey and other Hong Kong swimmers after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Alongside Haughey’s lead coach Tom Rushton, he organised the training camp for the 2021 Fina World Swimming Championships in Abu Dhabi, where she broke the 200m freestyle short course world record by 0.12 seconds.

When Trigg is not coaching, he lives in Plymouth, England, where Chillingworth went to university.

“I brought him into a camp and introduced him to Tom in the summer of 2022, and Adam trains full time with Tom,” he added.

Chillingworth will also be competing in the 100m breaststroke at Sette Colli.

Double Olympic silver medallist Haughey is racing in the 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle.

Cheng, who won bronze for Hong Kong in both the 4x100m freestyle and medley relay races at the Asian Games last year, will compete in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle.

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