Tokyo Paralympics: Hong Kong fencer Ben Cheung’s four gold medals at Atlanta Paralympics remembered as a major breakthrough
- The retired firefighter became one of Hong Kong’s most successful disabled athletes after his golden haul at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics
- Cheung lost his left leg during a rescue operation when he was just 23 but that didn’t stop him from achieving success in his sport
Celebrated wheelchair fencing champion Ben Cheung Wai-leung cherishes the four gold medals he won 25 years ago at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games.
He wouldn’t have been one of Hong Kong’s most famous disabled athletes if not for one fateful night 38 years ago when Typhoon Ellen hit the city and changed his life forever.
With the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics due to kick off on Wednesday with Hong Kong’s 24 disabled athletes kicking-off their campaign, Cheung is remembered for his remarkable achievement of winning two individual gold (foil and épée) and two team gold medals in the same discipline. His four gold medal haul made Cheung the most successful Hong Kong men’s disabled athlete at a single Paralympic Games. Female fencer Alison Yu Chui-yee also won four golds at the 2004 Athens Paralympics but Cheung will be remembered for being the first to make the breakthrough.
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Cheung will never forget the day typhoon signal 10 was hoisted in the summer of 1983 and how Typhoon Ellen caused havoc, leaving a trail of destruction that would leave him seriously injured.
At the height of the storm, tonnes of rain-loosened mud slid from the slopes of Mount Davis, taking everything in its path as it hurled towards residential squatter huts on the seaside toward the harbour.
Cheung, who was then a 23-year-old young firefighter stationed at Wan Chai fire station, was caught up in the drama. He lost the use of his left leg while saving a 75-year-old woman in the landslide.
“My left leg was amputated at Queen Mary Hospital,” said Cheung.
“Of course, if I had a choice, I would prefer the accident never to have happened so that I could remain a healthy person which is always the most important thing in life.
“But when it did happen, I had to accept the change and adjust my life to meet the new challenge.”
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It took Cheung years to adapt to his life before he was introduced to a number of sports through the Hong Kong Paralympic Committee & Sports Association for the Physically Disabled.
“I took part in table tennis, swimming and basketball before I finally chose wheelchair fencing in the early 1990s,” he said. “I was learning swimming in the Kowloon Park Swimming Pool and found out there were also some elementary wheelchair fencing courses for beginners.
“I just gave it a try and found fencing very interesting. I started to learn more and bought a full set of [fencing] gear at my own expenses. Later, I joined the more experienced fencers and trained with them at the Sports Institute as I worked at the nearby Sha Tin fire station.”
In 1994, Cheung represented Hong Kong at the World Wheelchair Fencing Championships and a year later he won the gold medal in individual foil at the Italian invitation championships, which attracted 56 competitors from 13 countries. He repeated his feat in the same tournament a year later.
In 1996, Cheung spearheaded a seven-member Hong Kong wheelchair team bound for the Atlanta Paralympic Games after winning a berth by competing in the qualifiers. And 19 days after windsurfer Lee Lai-shan swept to a historic Olympic gold medal off Savannah, Cheung created his own piece of history by lifting Hong Kong’s first wheelchair fencing gold at the Paralympics in the men’s individual foil, and in doing so, broke Europe’s dominance in the sport. Cheung then steered Hong Kong to three more gold medals in the team foil, individual épée and team épée.
“I was very confident in the individual events after my performance in Europe prior to the Games and we also had some very good preparations leading to the 1996 Games, especially with the arrival of our first full-time coach Wang Ruiji in 1994,” said 62-year-old Cheung, who retired seven years ago from the Fire Services Department as Assistant Divisional Officer. “But I could not have done it on my own. It must thank my fellow teammates, who all made a great contribution.
“We helped each other and worked for the common goal of winning gold. Without their support, I could not have enjoyed such huge success in Atlanta. My teammates in those days were Raymond Chan, Eric Kwong, Nelson Dai and Ben Choi and they were all great fellahs.
“At the Paralympics, we can only choose a maximum two individual events out of the three disciplines – foil, épée and sabre – and if you do well in the individual events, the coach would select you for the team events. Therefore a fencer can win a maximum of four gold medals.”
