Marathon runner Christy Yiu delays baby plans as she targets 2024 Paris Olympics – ‘I want to prove that I can make it’

The 33-year-old plans to have second baby after 2024 Paris Games as she focuses on qualifying for her second Olympics

She failed to qualify for Tokyo after having only two opportunities to race during a campaign seriously affected by the pandemic

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Christy Yiu and coach Shinetsu Murao at Hong Kong International Airport before leaving for Milan in May. Photo: HKAAA

Published: 5:06pm, 6 Jul 2021Updated: 5:08pm, 6 Jul 2021

Marathon runner Christy Yiu Kit-ching has decided to delay plans of having a second baby with the 2024 Paris Olympics now the focus after an unsuccessful qualification Tokyo Games campaign.

The 33-year-old twice broke the Hong Kong record in her only two competition appearances during the two-year campaign that had been seriously affected by the pandemic. She was less than two minutes behind the required benchmark of reaching the 2020 Olympics.

“It was very sad to have had only two races during the entire [qualifying] campaign,” said the 2016 Rio Olympian. “I was rejected five to six times [to compete] at other qualification events but there was nothing I could do.

Christy Yiu and husband Chan Ka-ho had their first baby in 2018. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

“The Paris Games will be three years from now and although I am not young any more, I want to prove I can make it. My original plan was to have our second baby after next year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou should I qualify for Tokyo. But with the Paris Games now becoming my target, there is no way I can stick to that plan as there would be insufficient time to prepare for the 2024 Games qualification.”

Yiu had been confident of making it to Tokyo after finishing sixth at the Gold Coast Marathon in the summer of 2019, her first marathon race after having a baby following her appearance in the Rio Olympics. In the Australian race, she broke one of the oldest Hong Kong records set by Maggie Chan Man-yee in 2004.