Hong Kong has produced another world champion. Eighteen-year-old Chan King-yin has followed in the footsteps of windsurfing queen Lee Lai-shan and Olympian Ho Chi-ho by winning his own world title - the IMCO World Youth Championships in Thailand. 'I'm very happy because I only expected to finish in the top five. This event was so tough,' a delighted Chan said yesterday.
Olympic gold medallist San San is still the IMCO world champion, while Ho won Hong Kong's first world youth title in Finland in 1999. Now Chan has joined the club.
He said the Pattaya event, which is organised by the International Mistral Class Organisation (IMCO), was considered tougher than the International Sailing Federation World Youth Championships (ISAF), where Ho claimed his youth title. IMCO has no entry limits, while ISAF allows only one male and one female from each country to take part. Both events are held every year.
Chan, who won a bronze at the ISAF event last year but was ineligible this year, held off challenges from more than 60 competitors, including two-time defending ISAF world youth champion Van Dijk Joeri, of the Netherlands, who came second.
Chan's teammate, Cheng Kwok-fai, finished seventh in the same category, while 16-year-old Wong Yu-him won a bronze in the junior boys' category.
Assistant coach Sam Wong Tak-sum, who led the squad to Pattaya, said: 'Chan has a medal chance at next year's Asian Games. But it depends on how he improves in the next 12 months and whether he can get used to racing in the senior ranks. He still lacks experience to do well against the senior sailors.'
Chan, who was only learning the basics as a 13-year-old in the summer of 1996 when San San put Hong Kong on the Olympic map in Atlanta, said her achievements had inspired him.