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Mike Chan

The woman tipped by the city’s head coach to step up and emerge as a true world-class épéeist is living up to the expectations in time for next month’s National Games.
Kaylin Hsieh Sin-yan also said “everything was fresh” for her after ending last season with a career-high No 4 ranking in the world.
And with the new fencing season fast approaching, she was looking to replicate her success.
“The results for me last season were the best for me ever; the situation was very rare,” she said. “I hadn’t stayed in the top 16 for such a long time.
“There is a lot of new stuff too. I have a new coach, so we have to learn to work together. I still need to improve a lot and be prepared to make instant adjustments on the strip, to fine-tune what I have right now.”
Highlighted by her first senior gold medal on the tour at the Doha Grand Prix in January, Hsieh’s breakthrough season came after Paris Olympic champion Vivian Kong Man-wai decided to walk away from the sport just days after her brightest moment as an athlete at the Grand Palais last summer.

Hongkonger Hsieh’s success also included a World Cup bronze medal in Vancouver last November, before she became the first from the city to win successive medals at consecutive World University Games when she defended her women’s individual épée title in Germany.
Born in Canada on May 19, 2001, Hsieh returned to Hong Kong with her family around the age of four. Thanks to her swimmer dad, she enjoyed sports as a child and also did swimming, taekwondo and basketball growing up.
Hsieh began practising fencing two years later, when she was in primary school, but she became an épéeist only after spending four years on the foil and when she was spotted by her secondary school coach.
“The coach thought that foil would limit me to Hong Kong, but épée would help me reach a world-class level,” she said.
And that proved correct.
In 2016, Hsieh, as a 15-year-old, snatched a silver medal at the Asian Under-23 Championships. Two years later, she added two gold and two bronze medals in the individual and team events at the Asian Junior & Cadet Fencing Championships in February, before pocketing a gold medal in the cadet category at the World Cadets and Juniors Fencing Championships in Verona two months later.
In October later that year, right-hander Hsieh, who was also the flag bearer for the Hong Kong delegate, added an individual and a mixed team silver medal at the Summer Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.
Her accolades in 2018 also included an individual bronze medal at the regional championships and a team bronze medal at the Asian Games in Jakarta.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Hsieh’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) fencing career was highlighted by team and individual runner-up titles in 2021 in her first year.
Hsieh’s undergraduate years and the months after her graduation in May were filled with more joy on the piste, as she took home two women’s individual épée gold medals at the World University Games in Chengdu in 2021, and in Essen, Germany, four years later.
Still learning to train under Gauthier Grumier, the city’s new épée head coach, Hsieh said she was looking forward to taking part in the National Games at Kai Tak Arena and starting the new season in November.

“Maybe my coach and I are not on the same page all the time. I need to understand what he wants from me,” the 24-year-old Hsieh said. “It’s possible that he might see things that I missed, so it’s about working together.
“My results last season showed that my efforts have not been wasted, and it’s correct to reflect on how to do better. You just need to change something if you want to improve, and yes, it’s always difficult to change. But I managed it.”
Going forward, Hsieh said she would retain her recent approach of not focusing solely on the results.
“I still want to win a medal every time I compete,” she admitted. “But I will focus on what I must do to achieve this target, and that is to fence well every time I lunge.
“I just need to keep thinking about how to do better in every bout, and hope to replicate this season.
“This is going to be my approach at the China Games and the tournaments to come. But all in all, I know I just need to enjoy every moment on the piste and enjoy the moment chasing my dreams as an athlete.”


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Kaylin Hsieh winning her first gold medal on the fencing tour by beating Nelli Differt of Estonia at the Doha Grand Prix in January. Photo: Getty Images

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City’s leading épéeist ends previous season with world No 4 ranking but wants to do better in the coming one, while enjoying the moment


City’s leading épéeist ends previous season with world No 4 ranking but wants to do better in the coming one, while enjoying the moment.


Fencing

Kaylin Hsieh Sin-yan

Vivian Kong Man-wai

National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

Hong Kong fencer Kaylin Hsieh hopes to launch another ‘very rare’ season at National Games

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}City’s leading épéeist ends previous season with world No 4 ranking but wants to do better in the coming one, while enjoying the moment

City’s leading épéeist ends previous season with world No 4 ranking but wants to do better in the coming one, while enjoying the moment