Asian Games: agony for Hong Kong fencers on a day of near-misses as gold somehow eludes quartet
Hong Kong had gold in sight, and had it snatched away at the death
Choi blew a two-point lead with just 30 seconds remaining of his final match against China’s Huang Mengkai and in the process handed the 20-year-old the biggest prize of his young career.
Huang was down receiving medical treatment with just a minute left of the duel and Choi two points to the good at 10-8, and it seemed that Hong Kong was about to strike gold for the first time in Jakarta. But in a disastrous final minute, Choi’s gold medal hopes collapsed.
“It’s a pity cause I was leading 10-8 and he caught up really well,” Choi said.
“I was actually a bit tired at the end. And my muscle – I don’t know if it’s cramp or something, but I couldn’t do what I wanted to, and then he did what he wanted to. It was a good few points for him at the end.”
Choi wasn’t the only Hong Kong fencer to lose out agonisingly on Tuesday.
The quartet of Choi, Cheung Ka-long, Vivian Kong Man-wai and Kaylin Hsieh Sin-yan fenced beautifully all day long in the men’s individual foil and the women’s individual epee, and it’s a disappointment that for their collective dominance, they couldn’t better their haul.
