athlete of the week
Name Cliff Ching Kim-fu School La Salle College Grade Form Five Sport Swimming
Achievements Cliff, 16, is an up-and-coming backstroke swimmer in Hong Kong.
At the 2009/10 Inter-School Swimming Championships (Division One, HK Island and Kowloon), he was a Grade B swimmer and won two gold medals. At the 2010/11 championships, he was promoted to Grade A and clinched two bronze medals.
He also won one silver and one bronze at the Interport Championships held at Xiamen, Fujian province, in September. Last month, Cliff came fourth in the 50m butterfly and won a bronze medal in the 100m butterfly at the 2010/11 Age Group Short Course Division 1, Part 3, swimming competition.
Soundbite 'I am devoted to swimming but at the same time I still like to have a balance with life outside of the pool. I know there are many swimmers waking up and training at 5am, but this kind of training doesn't suit me. I take part in competitions because I want to challenge and see how far I can push myself.
'I improved very quickly when I was a Grade C swimmer, but after that, I moved forward rather slowly. But now I feel I am back again and I am expecting great results in the coming months.'
From his coach 'Cliff needs to improve his focus during training and be more confident in competitions. He is still a fair way from reaching his goals, but I see room for improvement,' says Feng Xiao-dong, coach of Dali Swimming Club.
Ambitions 'I will be more active this year and will join more local competitions. I will also fight to qualify for major overseas events, including Chinese City Games, Asian Age Group Swimming Championships and All China Secondary School Students Games. If I hope to take part in these competitions, I need to do well in the upcoming time trials.'
