Fencing as a sport has become much more popular and gained increased government support since Vivian Kong Man Wai and Edward Cheung Ka Long won gold for Hong Kong at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. The annual Asia Junior and Cadet Fencing Championships are a glimpse into the next generation of elite athletes ready to represent Hong Kong on the global stage.
Asian Junior and Cadet Fencing Championship 2025 were held in Kuwait City, Kuwait from the 23rd of February until the 28th of February. There are three fencing types, Foil, Sabre and Epee. Each of these types is then separated by age, gender, team and individual, creating 24 total categories for this particular tournament. This year, members of the Hong Kong This year, members of the Hong Kong Fencing team won 16 medals out of 24 total categories, with 3 of those being gold medals.
This year, Wong Chit Daniel won gold for the Cadet Boy’s Foil Individual, and the Cadet and Junior Foil teams also won gold medals in team events.
Here is a table of all of the medals and the categories that they were won in:
Gao Ying Chuen had won the individual gold medal for Cadet’s Epee last year. However, he fell short of reaching similar heights this year after graduating to the Junior category. Instead, his teammate Yuen Nok Man secured a silver medal for Hong Kong in the Junior Men’s Epee Individual category against the Japanese Yuminaga Takayuki, falling short by just three touches. When asked about Gao’s own expectations coming into the tournament, he said “There is a definite difference in the level of skill coming from Cadet going into Junior, but I feel like the reason I could not perform to the level that I wanted to was more due to my mindset.” He revealed that he had gotten sick days before the tournament, which combined with the pressure of entering a new age bracket, led to a significant loss of confidence. This all came to a head when he lost by just one point to Uzbekistan’s Islamov Rustam.
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Nevertheless, Gao expressed that he was very happy that the team had managed to win a silver medal in the Junior Men’s Epee Team event, which he attributed to the hard work that he and his teammates put in. The Junior Epee Team coach Clarence Lai Ka Chun said “Honestly, I’m really proud of what they managed to achieve, I think that they have all improved a lot over the course of the year.” When asked about the final bout against China during the team event, he expressed that they knew going into it that team China was very strong, as they are taller and have historically been a difficult opponent for the Hong Kong team. However, he said “during the beginning of the match, we had created some good opportunities and made it very close, so it was a bit of a pity that we couldn’t convert it into a win. Nonetheless, I’m still very happy with our results this year.” The Hong Kong team lost to the Chinese National team by seven touches in the finals match.
In terms of the results of other teams, Gao seemed very optimistic about his Foil counterparts in the team. Gao said, “I feel that all the way down throughout the age groups, from cadet, to junior, and of course to Cheung Ka Long in senior, we have a very strong few generations of foil fencers.” “Especially when I watch Cheng Tit Nam fence, I can feel that he is a very strong athlete, so I hope we will be able to achieve further success together as the HK fencing team.” Cheung Tit Nam had lost by eight points to Japan’s Ono Ryoga, in the semifinals for the Junior Men’s Foil Individual event. However, with the Junior Men’s Foil Team, the four members had secured gold with a scoreline of 45 to 39 in their favour against the Korean national team.
Wong Chit Daniel won the only individual event gold medal for the Hong Kong team this year in the Cadet Boy’s Foil category, clinching the gold by just one point over his Chinese counterpart Lian Yifeng. The Cadet Boy’s Foil Team beat the Chinese national team by four points, with a final scoreline of 45 to 41 to win another gold medal for Hong Kong.
Though the young fencers still have a lot of room for growth, Lai said that he was very optimistic for all of the fencers to transition to full-time athletes in the senior categories. “I think that there are obvious aspects for them (the Junior and Cadet fencers) to improve at, namely it feels that before the competition the preparation that is done is not quite at a professional standard yet, but I’m sure this will happen with time.”