Vivian Kong’s gold at Paris Games inspires more girls to enrol in Hong Kong fencing schools
- One co-founder of a fencing school says she received 20 inquiries in the space of a few hours, compared with the usual four or five
Kong, who was competing in her third Olympics, came back from a six point deficit to win 13-12 in sudden death against her French opponent and clinch Hong Kong’s first gold medal of the Paris games.
Kong became just the third person from Hong Kong to win the top medal and the second in fencing to do so following Cheung Ka-long, who captured gold in the individual men’s foil at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Jina Chein Jin-en, co-founder of Hong Kong Fencing Master, said that she had been handling inquiries all day from parents over WhatsApp and in person at a show the club performed at Kai Tak’s Airside shopping centre.
Chein, who co-founded the club with former fencing Olympian Lau Kwok-kin in 2017, said she had received about 20 “serious” inquiries in the hours following Kong’s victory compared to the four or five she normally received.
Of these, Chein highlighted that the four who had signed up and paid were all girls.
