Road to Rio: I cried many times but I made the Olympics in the end, says Hong Kong marathon star Christy Yiu
Top women’s marathon runner needed to quit her nursing job and put months of hard training to qualify for this Summer Games as she makes up a two-member Hong Kong Olympic track and field team with male long jumper Chan Ming-tai
Hong Kong marathon runner Christy Yiu Kit-ching spoke about the enormous sacrifices she had to make to qualify for this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio, but she said all the hard work paid off in the end.
Yiu spoke to the media at the Hong Kong Sports Institute on Tuesday as she was presented alongside male long jumper Chan Ming-tai as Hong Kong’s two track and field athletes heading for Rio.
The 28-year-old Yiu was the first of the 38-member Hong Kong Olympic squad to book her ticket to the Summer Games having achieved the feat at the Prague Marathon (2:38:24) in May 2015.
Chan was 3cm short of the Olympic qualification mark but was granted a wild card entry to Rio through the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
Yiu said it wasn’t easy qualifying for the Olympics, where her Prague time was some four minutes inside the qualifying mark.
