Fenella Ng Gar-loc's Asian gold medal hopes were shattered yesterday after a performance of devastating power from China's Ou Shaoyan left the Hong Kong lightweight sculler trailing in the mainlander's wake.
A slow start from Ng was ruthlessly exploited by her 26-year-old opponent from Guangdong and by the time Ng eventually found her feet, the race for gold was effectively over.
After 500 metres, Ou had opened up a one-second lead over Ng and by the time they reached the halfway mark on 1,000 metres, it had widened to more than four seconds.
Against a rower of Ou's class, recovering such a deficit was always going to be a tall order and with the gap lengthening to eight seconds at the 1,500-metre marker, Ng realised it was a lost cause and was forced to concentrate on securing silver, which she did easily ahead of Thailand's Nikree Phuttharaksa in a time of seven minutes and 59.05 seconds. Winner Ou crossed in 7:47.34.
In many ways Ng, regarded as one of Hong Kong's strongest gold medal candidates before the Asian Games, can consider herself unlucky.
She was done no favours by the draw for yesterday's straight final, stuck in lane one, bang smack in the centre of the picturesque Mapprachan Reservoir, with Ou in lane six, as far away from the Hong Kong rower as it was possible to be.
Ng's sense of isolation from the field was made more acute by the fact that Japan's Akiki Asano withdrew from the race shortly beforehand, leaving Ng with a blank lane next to her.
