NEVER LOSE heart when facing failure was the message from wheelchair fencer Alison Yu Chui-yee (below with Young Post editor Kevin Kwong), winner of this year's South China Morning Post Student Sportsperson of the Year, at the award presentation.
The Our Lady of the Rosary College student shared her experience from last year's world championships in Hungary, where she won her world title.
During the championships, Yu, who took part in both the foil and epee events, lost to Hungarian Zsuzsanna Krajnyak, and had to settle for second place in the foil final. She was upset and depressed, but knew she had to pull herself together for the next event.
'I'm always very active and talk a lot, but after losing the first event, I put myself in a corner, settled down and thought about how to handle the coming competition and how I should face [Krajnyak] if I met her in the next event,' recalled the 18-year-old who lost a leg to bone cancer at the age of 11.
In the final of the epee event, Yu faced Krajnyak again, but this time, she defeated the fencer 15-4 to win the gold medal.
'People always see our successful side, but in fact, we have gone through loads of failures and spent lots of efforts before getting all these achievements' she said.