Asian Games: Hong Kong and Singapore swimmers cash in as China and South Korea disqualified
Stephanie Au, Jamie Yeung, Chan Kin-lok and Camille Cheng finish a strong fourth in the medley relay but are quickly promoted to second behind Japan
Hong Kong would have been happy with a strong fourth place in the pool at the Asian Games on Thursday. Suddenly, they were third as South Korea were disqualified, then they were second after China were disqualified.
There was a moment when they thought, possibly, that they themselves would be disqualified. But the official results flashed on the Jakarta Aquatic Centre big screen and Hong Kong’s Stephanie Au Hoi-shun, Jamie Yeung Zheng-mei, Chan Kin-lok and Camille Lily Mei Cheng had gone from nearly women to 4x100m medley relay silver medallists.
After Japan won the race easily in 3:54.73. China touched home in second and South Korea finished third with Hong Kong anchor Cheng gaining in fourth place. But Korea and China were disqualified because judges said they jumped too early at changeovers.
The Hong Kong girls went into a delightful frenzy after they realised they finished second and were still buzzing after the medal ceremony.
“Going into this, our mentality was just we are the underdogs, seeded fourth and we wanted to give it a fight,” said Cheng soon after stepping off the podium with her teammates. “We all did that, you know, Stephanie [Au] leading off, she’s my training partner and seeing her, especially because she had a rocky start to the meet, was really great.