EAST Asian Games gold medallist Ho Kim-fai underlined her superiority in the lightweight events by racing away to two gold medals at the Hong Kong Rowing Championships and completing a successful day for Hong Kong rowers at the Sha Tin Rowing Centre yesterday.
The Hong Kong Sports Institute scholarship athlete grabbed the JVC women's singles challenge cup when she won the race by a huge margin from fellow Sha Tin Sports Association teammate Malina Ngai. She later teamed up with Ngai to beat a strong overseas challenge and win gold again in the lightweight doubles.
The Hong Kong national squad managed to win all but two events they contested yesterday - the exceptions being the open men's coxed fours and the open men's singles - enjoying a dominance which showed that their triple gold success at the recent Asian Championships in Seoul, was no fluke.
Hong Kong head rowing coach Chris Perry was delighted at his squad's success, saying: ''We won all our lightweight events. It's pleasing that our rowers were able to enjoy themselves both fitness and strength wise after the Asian Championships.'' Perry saw his wife Kim-fai take the singles challenge cup by some 200 metres from Ngai, clocking seven minutes, 50.38 seconds. Ho, the recent Asian Championship gold medallist in the same event, had sewn up the race at the half-way stage. Ngai drew away from Zhong Weihua of Hubei, to take the silver in 8:36.71 with Zhong almost 25 seconds behind in 9:00.49.
Ho and Ngai showed they are a major force to be reckoned with in the doubles, finishing almost 49 seconds ahead of Hubei's Zhang Weihua and Li Yan in a winning time of 7:38.67.
Hong Kong were defeated in the men's open singles with Toyama's Takahiro Nishida finishing ahead of Sha Tin's Matt Richardson and Leung Wai-hung.
