Hong Kong hurdler Rico Cheung to make National Games debut with city record in his sights
The model athlete and part-time model says he has ‘loaded all my bullets’ and hopes to give mainland China’s top runners stiff competition
Rico Cheung Siu-hang has his sights set on Hong Kong’s 110m hurdles record when he makes his National Games debut in Guangzhou next month.
The 23-year-old’s personal best of 13.77 seconds, which he ran at the Hong Kong Athletics Championships last year, is just 0.03 seconds slower than the existing mark, which was set by Chan Chung-wang in 2018.
And as well as targeting the record, the relatively inexperienced Cheug is hoping to gain experience racing against the top-tier competitors he will face on the mainland.
“This will be my first time competing at the National Games, and I am really excited,” said Cheung, who in 2021 became the first Hong Kong athlete to reach a World Under-20 Championships final in any event. “My goal is to reach the final and hopefully break the Hong Kong record.”
In preparation for the Games, he trained in Shanghai in August under Sun Haiping, the coach of China’s legendary hurdler, Liu Xiang.
Liu won the 110m hurdles in 2004 in Athens to become China’s first Olympic champion in men’s athletics, with his winning time of 12.91 seconds still standing as the Olympic record, more than 20 years later.
