Profile | Paris Olympics: who is Cheung Ka-long? Stunning rise of Hong Kong’s double gold medallist
- The first man to retain an Olympic foil title in 68 years, he has come a long way since joining his first fencing class in Hong Kong aged 10
Only two men’s foil fencers had successfully defended their Olympic throne before Hong Kong’s Cheung Ka-long managed it at Paris’ Grand Palais on Monday.
France’s Christian d’Oriola had been the previous one to do it, claiming his second in Melbourne in 1956 four years after winning in Helsinki. Before that, you had to go right back to Nedo Nadi of Italy winning in Stockholm in 1912 then defending it eight years later in Antwerp, with the 1916 Games in Berlin cancelled because of the first world war.
No one did it in a shorter time span than Cheung. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic delaying the Tokyo Games to 2021, the Hongkonger’s two gold medals came 1,100 days apart.
Three years on, Cheung, now 27, has remained largely his same introverted and softly spoken self, but he arrived at these Games with many more medals around his neck.
From becoming Asian champion aged 18 to winning Hong Kong’s first fencing World Cup medal in St-Petersburg a year later, left-hander Cheung has more than doubled his medal tally since that historic gold in Japan.
