How Hong Kong’s ‘gymnast Angel’ is flying high again after devastating injury that left her leg barely held together
After tearing four major ligaments in her knee, few gave Wong hope of making a comeback, but she has proved the doubters wrong and is targeting the 2018 Asian Games
“I definitely didn’t go there to win medals. I just wanted to get back to the field, to get the feeling of competition,” said Wong, nicknamed ‘gymnast angel’ by local media.
“The Tianjin event reminded me of a similar occasion, when I walked into the O2 Arena representing Hong Kong at the London Olympic Games. Both meant so such to me.”
Hong Kong’s top gymnast for almost a decade before her injury, Wong was a bronze medallist at the 2011 World University Games in Shenzhen and the first Hong Kong gymnast to reach the Olympics when she qualified for London. She has a balance beam move named after her by the world governing body.
In July 2015, she was targeting a medal at the Asian Championships and a second Olympics the following year in Rio, but those dreams evaporated in an agonising instant as she suffered a serious fall from the asymmetric bars, tearing all the major ligaments in her left knee – medial and lateral, and both cruciates.
