{"id":139416,"date":"2025-11-18T07:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T07:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/139416\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T07:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T07:48:08","slug":"hong-kongs-ian-ho-reflects-on-becoming-first-male-swimmer-to-win-gold-at-national-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/139416\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s Ian Ho reflects on becoming first male swimmer to win gold at National Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">For the past decade, Siobhan Haughey has spent a lot of time in the spotlight as the city\u2019s star of the pool, but she is not the only swimmer making waves at the National Games.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Ian Ho Yentou grabbed his share of headlines on Sunday, storming to the men\u2019s 50m freestyle gold in Shenzhen by winning the final that also included China\u2019s Olympic star Pan Zhanle.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Ho\u2019s success marked the first time a Hong Kong men\u2019s swimmer has won a gold medal at the multi-sports games in China. And what is just as impressive, the veteran swimmer won in a time of 21.71 seconds, shattering the city\u2019s record, which he set only months ago at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The day after claiming his historic gold at the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre, Ho reflected on his remarkable feat to the Post.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cIt was sick. I was very pleased with it,\u201d said the United States-born swimmer, who arrived just over two months before Hong Kong\u2019s 1997 handover back to China. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those feelings that you can\u2019t really believe until you have it.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cDefinitely surreal, and with that, there is a lot of gratitude. Just feeling so grateful to all the people who helped me along the way, it\u2019s really special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Swimmer Ian Ho shattered Hong Kong\u2019s men\u2019s 50m freestyle record on his way to victory at the National Games. Photo: Xinhua\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/6a235529-f27d-48df-bc18-1d3f50b31c7e_0a093bad.jpg\" title=\"Swimmer Ian Ho shattered Hong Kong\u2019s men\u2019s 50m freestyle record on his way to victory at the National Games. Photo: Xinhua\"\/>Swimmer Ian Ho shattered Hong Kong\u2019s men\u2019s 50m freestyle record on his way to victory at the National Games. Photo: Xinhua<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past decade, Siobhan Haughey has spent a lot of time in the spotlight as the city\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51926,86429,86426,1657,20943,3448,86423,85,46,86427,86424,86428,86425,16173,2252,82839,105,37891,50305],"class_list":{"0":"post-139416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2025-national-games","9":"tag-asian-games","10":"tag-chen-hao","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-fujian","13":"tag-hong-kong","14":"tag-ian-ho-yentou","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-liu-wudi","18":"tag-mens-50m-freestyle","19":"tag-nagoya","20":"tag-pan-zhanle","21":"tag-shenzhen","22":"tag-singapore","23":"tag-siobhan-haughey","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-swimming","26":"tag-zhejiang"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}