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THIRTY-year-old Ho Kim-fai, who gave up teaching two years ago to concentrate on sport, yesterday won the women's lightweight single sculls, to earn Hongkong a rare gold medal in a multi-sport meeting for National Olympic Committees.

  Ho, a full-time athlete at the Hongkong Sports Institute, completed the two-kilometre course well ahead of China's Hu Xinfen and North Korea's Pae Jong-ae.

  There were only four entrants for the event at the Shanghai Aquatic Sports Centre.

  The gold medal capped a successful day for Hongkong athletes at the East Asian Games, which close tomorrow night.

  Hongkong's medal tally was boosted by four from wushu last night, with Ng Siu-ching winning a silver and a bronze, and Li Fai a bronze in women's events, to add to Leung Yat-ho's silver in the men's nanquan the previous day.

  Ho, whose mother came from Shanghai, was cheered on by some of her relatives still living in the city - and, of course, by her husband, Chris Perry, who is also her coach.

  The couple have been a perfect match since they bumped into each other, almost literally, on the Shing Mun River in Sha Tin seven years ago.

  Ho was in her canoe, Perry in his rowing boat, one going forwards, the other going backwards.

  ''We just managed to avoid a collision,'' recalled a proud Perry yesterday after watching his star student win the gold medal.

  ''Nothing was said at the time - we just gave each other a look and carried on our way.''   They were both staying at the Hongkong Sports Institute, or the Jubilee Sports Centre as it was then known, at the time of the first meeting.

  Perry, now 32, had arrived in Hongkong in March 1986 to take up the post of rowing coach after three years as coach of the British lightweight team based at the national water sports centre in Nottingham.

  Ho, born in Macau but raised in Hongkong, was on a residential sports course at the institute.

  ''We actually met for the first time in the TV room one evening, got chatting and agreed to go out jogging together the next morning,'' said Perry.

  ''I was new in Hongkong and was looking for someone to take me round. Fai proved to be the ideal person.''   Ho, who gave up her job as a physical education teacher at the Pui Ying College in Sha Tin, was a keen canoeist at the time, having represented Hongkong in the 1984 Olympics.

  ''I persuaded her to switch from canoeing to rowing because there is no lightweight division in canoeing. She started rowing in 1987 and was a natural.''   Love blossomed off the water and the couple were married in 1988.

  Since then their professional working relationship has taken Ho from a bronze medal in the 1989 Asian Championships to two silvers at the 1991 Asian Championships and now a gold in the first East Asian Games.

  Talking about their relationship, Ho said: ''It works very well because the communication is so good. We can talk about the training and work things out together.

  ''But I get no special favours. If I do not maintain my standard he will not enter me for the big events.''   It was the first gold medal for a Hongkong athlete in a multi-sport event involving National Olympic Committees since the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, where Chan Chi-choi and Amy Chan won the mixed doubles badminton title.

  After her victory, Ho paid tribute to the sports psychology training of Beijing specialist Miss Ding Xueqiang, who visited the Hongkong Sports Institute on a six-month secondment last year.



Rower strikes rare gold for Hongkong