Tokyo Olympics: how San San laid foundations for Cheung Ka-long’s future Hong Kong glory
- Windsurfer San San was a once-in-a-lifetime talent, while Cheung is a product of programme inspired by her success
- Cheung’s fencing gold medal proves Hong Kong has a development system that works, though it is far from perfect
One was a freak talent who emerged raw and brash from the beaches of Cheung Chau to gatecrash the system and change it forever. The other is a product of the very system that, 25 years earlier, was injected with a much-needed dose of legitimacy.
First, there are the obvious things: San San’s took place during British colonial rule in which God Save the Queen was played during the medal ceremony in Savannah on the Georgia coast, while Cheung’s was the first time the China national anthem, March of the Volunteers, was played on behalf of a Hong Kong athlete at the Olympics.
Lee’s was the first medal of any colour for a Hong Kong athlete at the Olympics since their debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games. Cheung’s was the city’s fourth, with table tennis men’s doubles pair Ko Lai-chak and Li Ching winning silver in Athens 2004 and track cyclist Sarah Lee Wai-sze taking keirin bronze in London 2012.
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In addition, San San’s gold was largely expected because she was a previous world champion – Hong Kong’s first in an Olympic sport – while Cheung, even though he has an impressive list of achievements on the international stage, was ranked 19th going into the Tokyo Games.
The key contrast between the two masterful efforts, though, was that San San’s world-class potential was manifest long before she was recruited into a structured development programme, while Cheung was identified as a future prospect – not necessarily an outstanding one – at a relatively young age and was deemed suitable for processing at the bottom of the pyramid in a system that ultimately turned him into a world-class athlete and an Olympic champion.
Cheung’s glorious gold in Tokyo, in which he displayed talent, skill, mental toughness and superior fighting spirit, is a patent sign that his triumph and San San’s gold from 25 years ago are intricately linked.
Cheung, and any other Hong Kong medallist from these Tokyo Games, needed San San’s groundbreaking gold to make the most of the comparatively advanced development programmes at the Hong Kong Sports Institute that they benefit from today.
Lee was always going to do something special on the water. Her uncle Lai Kam operated a windsurfing school on Kwun Yam Beach. It was her uncle whom she credits with helping her to reach a certain standard that allowed her to eventually become a world-beater.
Her successes at a relatively mature age alerted the Hong Kong Sports Institute to her talents. They created, from scratch, the apparatus to help her grow. And this included a world-class coach in Dutchman Rene Appel.
San San, her future husband Sam Wong Tak-sum, and Appel were given the finances to travel the world competing against top-class overseas sailors who would initially overwhelm the island girl before she honed her strength, speed and mental strength to become the world’s No 1 women’s boardsailor.
San San once said of her rise: “It was my uncle who made me a world-class windsurfer. He’s the one who I learned from most. Rene also helped my career, he helped with certain technical aspects that helped me improve my performances.”
Dennis Whitby, who was the Institute’s chief executive during Lee’s gold medal performance, said at the time that San San was not a result of the development programme he was in charge of, though her success ensured future stars would be.
“Basically, you had an exceptionally talented athlete who came together with a world-class coach and you had an Olympic champion,” Whitby said at the time. “She’s a freak. You can’t develop such talent.”
Cheung’s path to the top took an entirely different route. His parents were both basketball players but he chose fencing, having spent time under the wing of former international Wong Tsan at his Hong Kong Fencing School academy.
The 24-year-old Cheung, a handover baby born three weeks before Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, unlike San San, did not dominate tournaments to alert the Institute scouts. He went through a talent identification programme as a young teenager, was considered to have potential and entered into a development system – which is appreciably more sophisticated even 10 years ago than it was during Lee’s days as a scholarship athlete.
Cheung was able to enjoy world-class coaching, unlimited access to facilities and equipment, sports medicine services, sports psychology and financial backing from a young age because of fencing’s Tier A status that avails them to maximum benefits.
Though Cheung has no need to thank Lee for his success – his own hard work, skills, sheer willpower and mental toughness being his recipe for gold – Hong Kong sport overall will forever feel a debt of gratitude to the now 50-year-old Lee.
Hong Kong went into the Tokyo Games with more medal hopes than ever before. And that is because a structured sports development system – though it is far from perfect and still needs better financing – has been evolving ever since her heroic efforts 25 years ago and continues to grow and serve Hong Kong’s elite athletes.
Indeed, Hong Kong are these days blessed with many athletes who are among the best in the world, even if they do not all win medals. This was not the case when Lee ruled the waves. Any athlete who stands on the podium for Hong Kong at the Tokyo Games are now a result of this system.
San San, for most of her career, did not need that system. Cheung, however, did and there is no shame in that. In fact, that’s the way it should be because a strong development programme, in theory, will continuously pump out elite athletes without relying on an unusually gifted star to randomly emerge from nowhere.
Hopefully, the success of Cheung and any other medal winners over the next two weeks in Tokyo will add credence to the system that San San inspired and take Hong Kong sport to even greater heights.
