New Stars

 

My Canoe Club
CHEUNG Tsz Chung

Tsz Chung’s name perfectly encapsulates his story as an athlete, as “Chung” literally means “drive”. With a strong drive for victory, Tsz Chung listened to his heart, chose canoeing from all the sports available and devoted all his time and effort to this sports. On his bumpy road to becoming the top member of the Hong Kong Canoe Team, he experienced joy and sorrow, as well as all the highs and lows along the way.

Beginning with interest and persisting to the end

Tsz Chung’s canoeing story started when he was eight years old. During summer vacation, he and his close friends participated in a canoe training course organised by the LCSD. Despite being a holiday leisure activity, the course is a Star Award Training Course. He just managed to be awarded a 2-Star badge while all of his friends were awarded 3-Star badges. Tsz Chung was so frustrated that he intended to give up his canoeing training. Fortunately, with his mother’s encouraging words and his own unyielding character, he decided to enrol onto the course again, which later proved to be a life changing decision.

Since then, Tsz Chung has always been with his canoe throughout childhood. When he was a primary school student, he was happy to note his daily improvement upon receiving basic training. It was exactly this sense of satisfaction that motivated him to continue his training. When he was later admitted to a secondary school, it so happened that there was a water sports team. He have won many awards in inter-school competitions since joining the school team, which turned out to be the driving force for his devotion to canoeing.

Starting anew with help of the right coach

When Tsz Chung was a Secondary 3 student, he suddenly became fed up with repetitive training, and suspended training for half a year. While he continued to represent his school in competitions, his results were by no means as impressive as before. His opponents caught up with him nicely, but he was getting nowhere. He were eventually defeated despite his track record of tremendous success. Fortunately, this major setback woke him up. He became determined to start afresh and practise hard, in the hope of winning his medals back.

Having rekindled his initial passion for the sports, Tsz Chung achieved good results throughout the years and was promoted from the Youth Team to the Hong Kong Team. He later met Mr. Bako Zoltan, an expatriate coach, who was the best coach he could ask for. Zoltan arranged him and other teammates to receive training in Hungary. At that time, Tsz Chung, the U23 representative, was receiving training alongside local 15-year-old athletes, and it was to his surprise that he found he was far behind these youngsters. With his fighting spirit reignited, he vowed to catch up with them, aiming to become the world-class athlete.

Scaling the heights in Hong Kong’s glory

Tsz Chung became a full-time athlete in 2015. With more practice and training, his skills improved by leaps and bounds. In just a couple of years, he had become the top member of the Hong Kong Canoe Team, and was qualified as a sports scholarship athlete of the Hong Kong Sports Institute in 2017. In the same year, Tsz Chung won the “2017 ICF Canoe Ocean Racing World Championships (Hong Kong)” Asian championships, the first major championship in his career. He also showed his talent at the Hungarian International Championships that year by winning the men’s U23 K1-500m race.

In 2018, Tsz Chung and his teammates participated in the Asian Games, the biggest event they had ever joined. They made it to the semi-finals in the double race but failed to enter the finals. They had benefited profoundly from the experience gained in this event. In 2019, Tsz Chung visited Hungary again to participate in the “2019 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships”. He was not only shocked by the scale of the event but also captivated by the ambience of the venue, as both sides of the river bank were lined with a large crowd of spectators. With enthusiastic cheers and thunderous applause all around him, he enjoyed his competition so much and left with unforgettable memories to cherish, though he failed to win medals.

Subsequent to that event, Tsz Chung participated in the “2019 ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships & Asian Championships” held in Shaoxing, in which he challenged the 30 km race, the longest race he had ever competed in. Tsz Chung participated in the K1 event of the Asian Championships, which turned out to be a nail-biting race with a Japanese representative. It was not until the last few hundred metres that he passed his opponent to finish the race as the first runner-up. He was so excited that he raised his hands and shouted when crossing the finish line. The scene was so moving. It won him not only glory but an unforgettable experience.

Establishing and dashing towards goals

By providing detailed guidance and analysis, the coach made Tsz Chung aware that his strength was in long-distance endurance races. Tsz Chung decided to focus on the 1km race in the future, and therefore received a series of targeted training to increase the explosive power of muscles to overcome his weaknesses. Since the pandemic outbreak last year, both his training and competition schedules have been disrupted, but Tsz Chung kept highly self-disciplined and has been doing physical fitness training and indoor simulation training at home every day. Now with the pandemic receding, Tsz Chung can finally return to rivers and fight alongside with his canoe.

Looking ahead, Tsz Chung has set his target on competing in the 14th National Games of China in September 2021 and the Asian Games in 2022. In fact, Tsz Chung still has not gotten over the frustration he felt when he narrowly missed the chance to compete in the finals last time, but he refuses to throw in the towel, and vows to enter the finals and to achieve better results this time.

Aspiring to be a leader for inheritance

Tsz Chung often jokes that he is always mistaken as a rowing athlete by his friends because canoeing is still unpopular in Hong Kong. He aspires to achieve good results, with a view to letting more people know about canoeing. He believes the previous generation of athletes has contributed tremendously to the development of canoeing in Hong Kong, creating a good training environment for the team, while passing on the valuable experience accumulated over the years to the new generation. It was exactly how Tze Chung has been shaped. He expresses his willingness to pick up the baton and to continue to win glory for Hong Kong. In addition, he encourages more young people to participate in this sport, passing on the stories, spirit, and skills of canoeing for inheritance across generations.