Vivian Kong’s gold medal at the Paris Games has triggered a surge in fencing school sign-ups in Hong Kong. Photo: XinhuaHong Kong fencing schools have received a boost in interest in the last few days. Thanks to épéeist Vivian Kong Man-wai’s gold medal victory at the Paris Olympics, club founders say her victory has encouraged more girls to turn to the sport.
Kong, who was competing in her third Olympics, came back from a six point deficit to win 13-12 in sudden death against her French opponent and clinch Hong Kong’s first gold medal of the Paris games.
Kong became just the third person from Hong Kong to win the top medal and the second in fencing to do so following Cheung Ka-long, who captured gold in the individual men’s foil at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Jina Chein Jin-en, co-founder of Hong Kong Fencing Master, said that she had been handling inquiries all day from parents over WhatsApp and in person at a show the club performed at Kai Tak’s Airside shopping centre.
Chein, who co-founded the club with former fencing Olympian Lau Kwok-kin in 2017, said she had received about 20 “serious” inquiries in the hours following Kong’s victory compared to the four or five she would normally receive.
Of the 20 inquiries she received, Chein highlighted that the four who signed up and paid were all girls.
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“It is very inspiring for young girls,” she said. “No longer is fencing only for boys to win, but actually girls have a promising future.”
In her upbringing, Kong’s parents arranged a wide range of extracurricular activities, from ballet to ice skating to drawing and playing the guzheng, a traditional instrument, until she fell in love with fencing at the age of 11.
But Kong had previously said her parents always valued academics and sought to ensure she graduated before she was given the freedom to pursue fencing.
Kong, who studied at Stanford University and has a law degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, three years ago publicly shared a letter she wrote to a young local fencer’s parents encouraging them to foster their child’s passion for the sport.
Francis Lee Wing-keung, the founder and coaching director at the Academy of Fencing (Hong Kong), estimated that only about a third of those who took part in the sport were girls and adult women.
Lee said that many people thought of fencing as like martial arts in that it was more suitable for boys and not “elegant” enough for girls.
He felt that Kong’s victory could change that.
“When you watched the television last night, you can see that [fencing] is also very elegant,” he said.
Lee, who began fencing in 1989, has watched the popularity of the sport grow in the city over the past 35 years.
He said when he first obtained his coaching license in 1993, there would only have been about 500 practitioners in Hong Kong.
By comparison, there were more than 1,000 at an under-17 competition he attended over the last two days, he noted.
Lee said that with the city producing Olympic fencing champions such as Kong and Cheung, the future of the sport was only growing brighter.
“Lots of teenagers now look at [fencing] as a good path for them to grow,” he said. “With the popularity of the sport, they think they can make it as a career in the future.”