Race walker Ching Siu-nga, hurdler Chan Chung-wang named best female and male track and field athletes of year
- Association finally announces 2019 results after long delays caused by the pandemic
- Tse Chun-yin and Cade Wright claim best junior awards for boys’ and girls’ respectively
Race walker Ching Siu-nga was named the 2019 best female track and field athlete by the Hong Kong Association of Athletics Affiliates on Tuesday.
The 33-year-old got a timely boost ahead of her first race in a year when she takes part in the 10km Japan New Year Race Walking Championships in Tokyo on Friday. It is the same event she took part in 12 months ago before the pandemic threw world sport into disarray.
Hurdler Chan Chung-wang won the men’s category.
Up-and-coming Tse Chun-yin and Cade Wright, both long distance runners, were crowned the best junior boys’ and girls’ athletes respectively. The awards are usually announced in April celebrating achievements from the previous year, but had been repeatedly delayed because of the pandemic.
Having completed a 14-day quarantine last Friday in a hotel room where she trained on a treadmill, Ching is adjusting to racing again after a long absence from competition, with the Tokyo Games qualification her primary target.
“I have been training in sparsely populated districts in the rural area over the weekend and I have never taken any public transport,” said Ching over a videoconferencing.
“The coronavirus situation in Tokyo is a great concern to me. On race day, I will cover my body with a raincoat in the starting area and I won’t take off my face mask until the last moment before the start.”
Ching will use the race as a build-up to her second race in Japan when she competes in the All-Japan National Championships in February, with the target of shaving one minute and 30 seconds off her Hong Kong record of 1:32.30 to meet the Olympic entry mark.
It is the second time Ching has won the best athlete award after her success in 2014, while hurdler Chan, who set a season’s best 13.75 seconds in the men’s 110-metre hurdles in the Asia Grand Prix in Chongqing, China, last year, claimed back-to-back titles.
