Boots and allChina’s record-setting former skipper continues to break boundaries

Johnny Zhang Zhiqiang stole the show at the draw for the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens the other night.

Johnny, a surprise guest at the party in the newly-rebuilt California Towers and a well-known face in local rugby circles, received a warm applause from the audience after he delivered an impromptu speech in English.

When I first met him more than two decades ago I had to use an interpreter because my Mandarin was abysmal.

I’m ashamed to say my Chinese linguistic skills remain the same – non-existent – but Johnny can now speak English quite fluently. This is largely thanks to rugby, which has provided him with playing stints in Hong Kong (with DeA Tigers), Australia (Sunnybank) and the UK (Leicester Tigers).

His skill as a rugby player was what earned him a ticket to ride and today, now fully retired, he is confident enough in the English language to get up in front of a large crowd – as he showed the other night.

At Monday’s draw, Johnny and England’s Ben Gollings were the first two players named by the HKRFU in their “Magnificent Seven” team to celebrate the 40th edition of the Hong Kong tournament. And when I asked Johnny about his new “team-mate”, the unflappable back replied: “He is an honest man, a short guy but a very good player. He is a hero in my heart.”

Undoubtedly Johnny is a hero in the hearts of many thousands of young Chinese kids, too. He captained China for 11 years at both 15s and sevens, but it was in the abbreviated format that he excelled. He became the top try scorer at the Hong Kong Sevens after the start of the Sevens World Series in 2000 and on two occasions – in 2008 and 2009 – he was the tournament’s leading try scorer.