Olympics 2024: Hong Kong fencers in last-chance saloon as defending champion Cheung Ka-long risks going to Paris alone

Team need to qualify if they are to send extra fencers to the Games, but are outside the qualifying places

Greg Koenig’s team must finish in top two in final World Cup event or hope to beat China to a spot reserved for Asia and Oceania

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Cheung Ka-long (far left) may have to go to Paris without his Hong Kong teammates. Photo: SF&OC

Published: 8:44pm, 15 Jan 2024Updated: 3:06am, 16 Jan 2024

Hong Kong’s fencers are running out of time to book places at this year’s Olympics, head coach Greg Koenig admitted after his foil team’s latest lowly World Cup finish cost them a chance to advance their cause.

A string of poor results at the event in Paris consigned the city to 15th place on Sunday, denying them qualifying points for the Games, also in the French capital.

They lost to Germany, Hungary and Great Britain between wins over Malaysia and Singapore, and must now rely on getting spectacular results at the final World Cup in Egypt next month.

If Hong Kong miss out on team qualification, defending individual champion Cheung Ka-long is likely to be the only men’s foilist donning the city’s flag at Grand Palais on July 29. The foil team made it to the 2021 Tokyo Games, where they finished seventh.

Cheung Ka-long (left) won individual gold in Tokyo but his Hong Kong teammates also qualified. Photo: SF&OC

“It was not a good day for us,” Koenig said. “We missed our chance to really get some good points for the qualification, but unfortunately our match against Germany was complicated.”