Profile | National Games could see a new Lee crowned ‘Queen of Hong Kong cycling’
Ceci Lee has come from positions of weakness again and again to become one of the city’s strongest medal hopes next month
Hong Kong has the father of Ceci Lee Sze-wing to thank for the city producing a potential successor to two-time Olympic bronze medal cycling star Sarah Lee Wai-sze.
Ceci Lee began her sporting life as a triathlete, where her performances were undermined by her one weak suit: cycling.
“I just wasn’t good at it,” she said. “My dad wanted me to improve my results, so I focused more on my cycling.”
She enrolled on the local association’s Stars of Tomorrow programme and “started to enjoy the speed and variety, the different types of races and competing indoors and on the road”.
Lee switched lock, stock and barrel to the bike, aged 12. Half a lifetime later, she is going to the National Games as one of Hong Kong’s greatest medal hopes.
Once upon a time, that weight of expectation might have suffocated the 24-year-old; she has acknowledged that going to the 2021 Games in Shaanxi as an unknown quantity was partly responsible for her dashing to an unexpected road race gold.
Lee has previously spoken candidly about suffering from performance anxiety. Last year, the city team’s head coach, Herve Dagorne, likened his rider to a football striker whose nerve fails them in front of an empty net.