athlete of the week

Name Wong Yee-ching
School Diocesan Girls' School
Grade Form Four
Sport Swimming and lifesaving

Achievements

Yee-ching, 16, is a swimmer on the Hong Kong national squad. At the 54th Malaysia Open Swimming Championships this year, she won two gold medals - in the 200m butterfly and the 4x100m freestyle relay - and one silver medal in the 200m individual medley. She broke the tournament record in the 200m butterfly event.

She also won two bronze medals - in the 100m butterfly and 4x100m medley relay - at the 11th All China Secondary Schools Students' Games in Baotou , Inner Mongolia, in July.

The local swimming ace is also captain of her school's lifesaving team. She won one gold and one silver medal at the 2010/11 Inter-school Lifesaving Competition.

Soundbite

'I have a busy routine. I wake up at 4am on weekdays and begin training at 5am at the Wan Chai Harbour Road Swimming Pool. After school, I have training at the Hong Kong Sports Institute,' Yee-ching says.

'I will participate in three tournaments in a row this month so I need to be disciplined. I will soon be flying to Indonesia for the Asian Age Group Swimming Championships and return on October 14. I will arrive at the airport around 6am and will head straight to Kowloon Park Swimming Pool for the heats of the Inter-school Swimming Championships, which start at 8.30am.

'After the heats, I will depart for the China Intercity Games in Nanchang the following day. Then I'll rush back for the inter-school finals. It's a very tight schedule, but I've done it before.'

From her coach

'Yee-ching is a diligent girl. She's training more with the Hong Kong team and has less training at the club, but she continues to help us in team competitions,' said Cheung Kwok-yu, swimming coach of Happy Valley Athletic Association. 'She always gives her best. Her mum is also supportive of her. Yee-ching is a rising star.'

Ambition

'I qualified for the Guangzhou Asian Games last year but I was not the best. My target is to break my age-group records in Hong Kong. Eventually, I want to compete at the Asian Games, Fina World Championships and the Olympics.'