Olympic fencing champ Cheung Ka-long to face Paris Games rematch in Hong Kong
The event later this month, held to celebrate city’s co-hosting of National Games, will also feature former Olympic champion Zhong Man
Fencing ace Cheung Ka-long is to stage a Paris Olympics rematch in Hong Kong this month against Enzo Lefort, whom he beat in thrilling fashion en route to a glorious gold in the French capital last year.
The Hong Kong Palace Museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District will be the setting for the August 26 event, organised by local charity the GDCD Association as part of a fencing exhibition to celebrate the city co-hosting November’s National Games.
It will pit France’s Lefort – a three-time world champion and a men’s team foil gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics – against local boy Cheung, the organisers announced on Tuesday.
The Hongkonger won their knife-edge Paris quarter-final 15-14 and went on to retain the Olympic individual foil title that he had first won in Tokyo in 2021.
The exhibition will be the first time the Palace Museum hosts a fencing event, and a senior official of the local association admitted he was “sceptical” about the possibility at first.
“The Games at the Grand Palais in Paris last summer proved fencing events could be held anywhere,” said Antonio Lam Hin-chung, acting general secretary of the Fencing Association of Hong Kong, China. “There was doubt initially, but we found that it was feasible to stage an event.