Tokyo Paralympics: Hong Kong women’s épée team miss out on podium after losing to Russians in bronze-medal match
- Hong Kong settle for fourth place after a 45-34 defeat in bronze medal play-off
- Yu Chui-yee scores the biggest win 10-5 in fifth round but still falls short
Hong Kong’s women’s épée team failed to repeat their Rio 2016 heroics on Friday as the wheelchair fencers lost the bronze-medal match to the Russian Paralympic Committee team at the Tokyo Paralympics on Friday.
At the Makuhari Messe Hall, where Hong Kong notched an Olympic gold medal through Cheung Ka-long a month ago, the women’s épée team, headed by Yu Chui-yee along with Justine Charissa Ng and Chung Yuen-ping, came up short against the excellent Russians as they were beaten 45-34 and left to settle for fourth place.
Both Yu and Ng were members of the team when they clinched a silver medal at the Rio Paralympics five years ago but Chung, the replacement for retired Chan Yui-chong as the class B fencer in the team, struggled.
Of the nine rounds of in the match, Chung lost all three of her rounds scoring only one point against Alena Evdokimova. But there was to be no excuse for Hong Kong with the Russians the far stronger team throughout, leading from the off as Yu lost the opening round 5-1 to world number one Luliia Maya.
The Hong Kong number one did improve as the match progressed closing the gap to 15-29 at the end of the fifth round with an overwhelming 10-5 reversal against Viktoria Boykova, the Russians’ class B fencer. But that was to be the best Hong Kong could manage. The Russians soon pulled away again and made no mistake in claiming the bronze medal.
The Hong Kong women did at least give a better account of themselves than they had in morning’s preliminary round when they were overwhelmed 45-22. With only three teams in the pool following a last-minute withdrawal from hosts Japan, Hong Kong were able to progress to the semi-finals after beating Poland 45-40.
But they deal with the strength of Ukraine in the semi-final as the Europeans edged out favourites China 45-44 in their group encounter. Ukraine cruised into the final with a 45-27 win over Hong Kong while Russia lost to China 45-24 in the other semi-final.
