UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Two-time Olympic swimmer Camille Cheng thought Tokyo 2020 would be her last Games, but competing in Paris was too big a draw for the French Chinese athlete

- Salomé Grouard

This year will mark freestyle swimmer Camille Cheng’s third appearance at the Olympic Games for Hong Kong—a thrilling prospect for the seven-time Asian Games medallist, who’s looking at the Paris edition with a renewed perspective on her training and identity.

“I’ve been swimming for two decades, so I honestly thought that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would be my last one,” Cheng tells Tatler. “But there was a little voice in my head that kept bugging me, and [telling] me to give it everything I’ve got left in Paris.”

Committing to the Paris Olympics was not a decision the 31-year-old took lightly. She knew what the physical, mental and emotional cost of training for three years would be. “It’s a 24/7 lifestyle,” Cheng says. “Swimming professionally implies a lot of sacrifices: the time I don’t spend training, I spend recovering from my training.”

When she’s preparing for competitions, Cheng has very little time for herself: she swims eight times a week, goes to the gym three times a week and practises Pilates twice a week—that’s before the physiotherapy, massages, stretching appointments and weeks-long highaltitude training. She adds to this busy schedule a regimented routine, a controlled diet and the inability to have a conventional social life; these, though, are concessions that she has been making since she was at secondary school.