From dropping out to becoming an Olympic gold medalist, Edgar Cheung's extraordinary journey

The 27-year-old Edgar Cheung was crowned Olympic champion today (July 30) with a 15-14 victory, winning his second gold medal for the Hong Kong team at the Paris Olympics.

As usual, he was shy and not very talkative after the match, saying ''I have to try my best in every stroke even if I lose'', but revealing his maturity after training. 

Edgar Cheung won 4 gold medals at the age of 17.

Born into a basketball family, Cheung was first introduced to fencing at the age of 10 when he attended a summer interest class in primary school, and fell in love with the game at first sight.

In an interview with DotDotNews, Cheung's secondary school principal said that he had known Cheung since he was in the second year of secondary school, and that Cheung had been very focused since he was a child, and that he got along well with his classmates despite his introverted personality. "He showed his talent and love for sports when he was in school, and was often seen on the basketball court."

To realize his dream, Cheung decided to drop out of school early in Form Four. Cheung's mother said that the family hesitated for a long time before agreeing to her son's idea of becoming a full-time athlete after F.4. At the same time, she also requested Cheung to take two years to check whether he was training hard; if not, she asked him to return to school. When she saw that her son was indeed training hard and the feedback from his coaches was positive, the family became more supportive of his choice.

In 2014, at the age of 17, he became famous after winning 4 gold medals in the Asia junior championships. A year later, he was promoted to the Asian championships and won a bronze medal, an unbelievable achievement. At the age of 19, he became a gold standard fencer at the Asian championships, and at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, he made it to the round of 16 in men's foil, which was the best result in Hong Kong's men's foil history. A year later, at the world youth championships, he became the world champion at the age of 20, and the following year, he won the bronze medal in the individual competition and the silver medal in the team competition at the 2018 Asian games in Jakarta, setting him on the road to becoming a "Junior God of Fencing".

2021 is a year of both highs and lows for Edgar Cheung.

Cheung practiced day in and day out at the gymnasium and competed in tournaments, but he could not break through the bottleneck. After a year of intensive training, Cheung went all the way to the final of the Tokyo Olympics, defeating the previous Olympic gold medallist, Daniele Garozzo of Italy, 15-11, to win Hong Kong's second Olympic gold medal in history, and the first since the handover of Hong Kong. When his name was called on the radio, Cheung was overcome with emotion, "After all this hard work, I've finally made it this far," he said.

After dropping out of the top 16 in the world rankings and experiencing a one-day surge of more than 100,000 fans on IG, the Paris Olympics witnessed another breakthrough for Cheung. The former youth who struggled in the past has now transformed into a real man, with a promising future ahead of him!

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