PARIS: Vivian Kong is known in fencing as the “Sword Queen” and the tears that flowed after a memorable fightback on Saturday secured Hong Kong’s third Olympic title were understandable after overcoming two career-threatening injuries.

The 30-year-old has suffered two torn cruciate ligaments down the years and battled back to peak form each time. She showed the same single mindedness to overcome a 7-1 deficit and a partisan crowd—including French President Emmanuel Macron—to beat Frenchwoman Auriane Mallo in the epee final.

The graduate of Stanford University joins windsurfer Lee Lai-shan at Atlanta 1996 and fellow fencer Cheung Ka-long in Tokyo in 2021 in the pantheon of Hong Kong’s Olympic champions. Hong Kong—and the sport of fencing—are fortunate to have her.

She was once courted by Canada having lived there from age two to six but she declined their advances, and had chosen taekwondo as her favored sport before she discovered fencing. Her mother wanted her only child to carry on with her ballet classes but Kong opted instead for a compromise.

“I was interested in taekwondo and so I did it all the way until I was age 11 and I got my black belt,” she said. “But then my mother still wanted me to dance and in between she made me do ice skating. “I liked it, but I was not so good at it. And then my father stepped in and said, ‘Why don’t you try fencing?’ “Fencing is like the ballet of sports, it is very elegant and I really, really liked it.”

‘Reflect, heal and learn’

She may have lacked siblings but she would entertain herself by playing chess against herself although nowadays she prefers painting and yoga. She had plenty of time to kill during her long lay-offs after her two cruciate ligament injuries—she tore her left one in 2017 and the right two years later.

However, she credits a life choice she made after her first cruciate ligament injury for improving her general physical well-being. “After the injury, I wanted to change and be a new person,” she said.

“I wanted to recover faster. I kept Googling what foods to eat to recover quickly. “I am recovering a lot faster, I get muscle pain but it goes away really quickly. I have become so much stronger after turning vegan.”

She may be a single child and her sport a solitary one but she does not live in a bubble as she showed when the COVID pandemic hit and forced the postponement of the 2020 Olympics. She participated in Zoom calls with those who were living on their own as well as delivering supplies to children with special needs.

“This pandemic is asking us to ask ourselves what matters most,” Kong said in 2020. “Postponing the Olympics gives us time to reflect, heal and learn.” She certainly put those lessons into practice and it took just one more Olympics for her to achieve her golden moment. — AFP