Hong Kong’s young fencers had a successful trip to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for the Asian Junior & Cadet Fencing Championships held on 20 - 29 February, returning home with 13 medals (4 gold, 4 silver, 5 bronze).

Cheung Ka-long’s performance in the men’s foil (junior) was the highlight, as he beat Singapore’s Kevin Chan in the final for Hong Kong’s only individual gold medal.

Cheung also helped ensure the foil team went home as winners, while there were also team golds in the cadet sabre and cadet foil categories. He said the result was a timely confidence boost as he tries to secure a place at the Olympics.

Cheung revealed that his coach had tried to amp up the pressure as the chase for Rio heats up. “The most difficult thing is my coach told me that ‘You need to pretend this competition is the Olympic qualification,’ so that made me feel nervous. This gold medal makes me feel better now and was a big confidence boost for me, for the Olympic qualification and for the future also.” he said.

“From now on I’ll be training hard, that will be the best way [to make it to the Olympics].

Other individual medals included Matthew Mak’s silver in the men’s cadet sabre, and bronzes for Areta Lee (women’s junior foil), Chang Ngai-hing (women’s junior sabre), Lee Chak-fung (men’s cadet sabre) and Ng Lok-wang (men’s cadet foil). Apart from Cheung, men’s sabre team (cadet) and men’s foil team (junior and cadet) also won a gold medal for Hong Kong.

Geza Marffy, Acting Head Coach of the fencing team at the HKSI, was delighted with his team’s performance.

“I am very happy and proud of the Cadet and Junior Fencing Team’s praiseworthy performance,” he said. “I would like to highlight the diversity of the medals between the three weapons (Epee, Foil and Sabre).

“My expectation was 10-14 medals, taking into consideration the often-changing level of the different age groups that makes the results unpredictable particularly in the cadet events.

“[So] 13 medals including 4 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze medals is amazing. Those junior athletes who had our expectation for good results performed well, just like those cadet athletes who had our hope.”

“Cheung Ka-long is an extremely talented young athlete as he has proved multiple times already,” he said. “After Ka-long’s beautiful bronze medal from the 2015 Asian Championship his present victory wasn’t a surprise. He is self-confident and ambitious, unquestionably the best of his age group.

“His next major task is the qualification for the Rio Olympics. Although he had performed very well in past World Cups and Grand Prix competitions he is not able to qualify through the F.I.E. (International Fencing Federation) ranking so he must compete and win in the Zone Qualification (Wuxi, China) competition in April. Ka-long has a great chance to qualify.”

Hong Kong’s young table tennis prospects impressed at two events in Europe, winning 6 golds at each of two tournaments on the ITTF Junior circuit.

First up was Metz, France, where there were golds in the junior girls’ doubles (Liu Qi and Mak Tze-wing), and the cadet girls’ team and doubles (both won by Lee Ka-yee and Wong Chin-yau). Hong Kong also took a silver and 2 bronzes.

The following week, the team was in Orebro, Sweden, and Lee’s good form continued with gold in the cadet singles and silver with Wong in the doubles. Another silver and 3 bronzes completed the team’s haul.

There were impressive results for Hong Kong tennis at the start and end of the month.

First, Sou Ming-chun and Wong Hong-kit teamed up to win the boys’ doubles at the New Zealand ITF Summer Championships in Auckland, with Sou also reaching the semis of the singles.

And at the end of the month, in Bangkok, Thailand, Wong teamed up with Anthony Jackie Tang to win another medal in the boys doubles, reaching the final of the LTAT ITF Junior (Grade 1).

The Hong Kong badminton team won 1 silver and 1 bronze medal at the Princess Sirivannavari Thailand Masters held on 8 - 13 February in Bangkok, Thailand.