Swimmer Sze Hang-yu will be making her fourth Olympic appearance at the Tokyo Games next week – but this time she will be going as a coach.
Having represented Hong Kong as a member of the swimming team at the 2004, 2012 and 2016 Games, the 33-year-old is now looking forward to a new experience in a different capacity. She will be one of three Hong Kong coaches in Tokyo, alongside head coach Chen Jianhong and David Wong Kai-wai.
“This will be a brand new experience for me to participate in the Olympic Games as a coach, especially under these circumstances amid the pandemic, which has never happened before [at the Games],” said the veteran, who still holds a number of short course Hong Kong records.
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“There is a lot of paper work to do as I prepare for my departure. This is mainly related to the safety measures our swimmers have to go through when they arrive in Tokyo.
“You have to pay a lot of attention to the details so that our swimmers only need to focus on their preparations without worrying too much about other arrangements.
“Of course, it would have been great if I had qualified for the Tokyo Games as a swimmer which would have been my fourth Olympics after Athens, London and Rio. I did try to qualify for Tokyo but I didn’t succeed, but the opportunity of attending the Olympic Games in another role will still be exciting for me.”
As a former Olympian, Sze said everything had been well taken care by the back room staff in past where the athletes only had to attend training and competition on time and take care of their own bodies so that they were physically and mentally fit before their races. But she said it was a different story now that she is a coach of the team.
“There are many things I need to learn as a coach, not only on the technical side but also on how to look after and communicate with the swimmers, but I am happy to take on these challenges,” she said.
Sze’s relationship with some of the Tokyo Olympians gives her an advantage.
“I did go to other major Games with swimmers such as Stephanie [Au Hoi-shun] and Siobhan [Haughey] and we can easily communicate,” said Sze. “Also since most of the squad members to Tokyo are female, it will be more convenient for me to talk to the swimmers in some places such as the locker room.”
Of the nine swimmers going to the Tokyo Games, seven members are women and many of them are Sze’s teammates when they competed together at the 2012 London Games, 2013 East Asian Games, 2014 and 2018 Asian Games. Swimmers such as Au, Haughey, Camille Cheng Lily-mei and Jamie Yeung Zhenmei are well acquainted with Sze, while young member Ho Nam-wai has followed Sze to a training camp in New Zealand in 2019.
Among the nine Olympians, Au will be having her fourth attempt in Tokyo.
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Despite her new role, Sze still wants to continue her swimming career and says her days as a competitive swimmer are not over and she was not ready to give up on her dreams.
“I will keep my part-time coaching role after the Tokyo Olympics but at the same time I will continue [to compete] as a swimmer, with the short course Worlds later the year and possibly next year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou my main targets,” she said. “But of course I must maintain a good standard to stay competitive and I must still enjoy competing in the pool.”
To show just how competitive Sze still is, she recently took part in the qualifiers for December’s short course World Championships in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Sze broke the Hong Kong record in the 100m individual medley in a time of one minute and 0.63 second, reaching the A qualifying standard for the Worlds.
Honorary secretary of the Hong Kong, China Swimming Association, David Chiu Chin-hung, praised Sze’s hard work as a swimmer over the years but added Sze would need to rethink about her future.
“She is not young any more and going to the Tokyo Olympics as a coach will definitely widen her horizons in swimming,” said Chiu, who’s also the swimming team manager for the Tokyo Olympic team. “She has vast experience in the sport and if she chooses to become a coach, she can have a bright future.”
