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Paul McNamara

After all the meticulous preparation, the talking and the injury frights, Chloe Leung Wing-yee is ready for the clock to start ticking on her race of truth in the remote hills of Shinshiro City on Sunday.
The little finger on her right hand that Leung broke following a racing crash in Italy in July has been a nuisance, but she has reconciled with the fact that it is just one more challenge, besides the slopes and corners that characterise a deeply technical course, to overcome in her pursuit of Asian Games individual time trial (ITT) gold.
Still taped to its neighbouring digit, the offending finger is likely to be more of a pain, both literally and metaphorically, when Leung competes on the track in the Madison, where riders use their hand to sling their teammate back into the race.
“I haven’t done much track training because of this,” Leung said.
Instead, she has buried herself in getting ready for the road; twice paying exploratory visits to the tight Japanese roads that will stage this weekend’s time trial, and spending time practising on the narrow, winding streets of Girona in Spain.
“In Girona, we were working on my skills,” she said. “The biggest thing about going to Japan was to prepare for the weather. We expect it to rain on race day, so I’m ready for the worst, rather than expecting great weather, then suddenly it’s raining.”

Still, wet skies and slick surfaces on Sunday would suit Leung down to the ground. She marries fearlessness with judiciousness to navigate weaving descents at breakneck speed, and even left male counterpart Vincent Lau Wan-yau trailing on the race course last week.
“I like [rainy conditions] because I’m more confident than ever before: going into corners, doing the downhills and the turns, everything,” Leung said.
“Vincent was a bit hesitant in the rain. I went faster in it.”
An elevation gain of 326m over the rolling 24.4km route will also play into Leung’s hands.
“She’s one of the best climbers in Asia,” Herve Dagorne, the Hong Kong head coach, said.
“We are thinking about gold.”
Experience has taught Leung to wear that expectation lightly. It still rankles that she finished one place outside the medals in Hangzhou three years ago.
“I think at that time I was really feeling pressure, but now I just want to enjoy this,” Leung said, perhaps leaning into memories of the ITT 2018 Games bronze she won as a 21-year-old.
“I didn’t expect anything then and the medal was 100 per cent a surprise,” she added.
“I think there will be a little bit of pressure [on Sunday] but confidence, too. I’m hoping that on the start line I feel only happiness, and don’t think about anything else.”
Unlike Hong Kong’s gun cyclist, Ceci Lee Sze-wing, who is skipping the road in Japan, Leung is about to enter one month of intense competition.
She will compete in the Games road race on Tuesday, alongside Kwan Tsz-kwan and Guardiola Cheung Li-tong, before teaming up with Lee in the Madison. The pair are set to race in the same event at next month’s UCI Track World Championships in Shanghai.
“I trust the coaches and we’ll do everything we can to maintain our fitness, then try to improve on our last world championships,” Leung said.
Fifteenth in 2024, Leung and Lee have come on leaps and bounds – technically, physically and psychologically – in the intervening period.
Rather than bemoan her workload, Leung wishes she could add to it by competing in the 2026 UCI Road World Championships, which clash with the Asian Games. Leung went so far as to investigate the possibility of flying to Montreal for the women’s road race on September 26, before returning for the Games track programme from September 29.
“I really want to go, but the time difference is too difficult,” Leung said. “I want to know where I am now compared to last year [when she was 22nd and 39th in the time trial and road race, respectively].”
Mention to Dagorne that Games organisers this year are staging road races before their track counterparts, a reversal from 2023, and watch the steam rise from the Frenchman’s ears.
Leung is more relaxed over the switch, “I prefer having the road first, because it helps me prepare for the track,” she said.
The 29-year-old has two bigger-picture targets: to qualify for her first Olympics in 2028, and to secure a contract with a team on the UCI Women’s World Tour. She attracted interest following her 2025 World Championships exploits. “It’s always my dream, and I’ll keep going for it,” she said.
Leung acknowledged it would be complicated for her and Lee to replicate their golden Madison effort from last year’s National Games. She has noted with interest, however, that the Japanese favourites “mention the China team every time they do an interview”.
“I watch it and read it,” Leung said. “If they only focus on them and leave us alone, we can do what we want. That’s the best scenario.”
In Japan, Leung will have to do without elder sister Boey Leung Bo-yee, who retired soon after joining Chloe in the team pursuit quartet that established a city record to claim bronze from March’s Asian Track Championships.

Stripped of Boey Leung, Dagorne has chosen not to enter Hong Kong in the women’s team pursuit in Shizuoka, because “we’d have no chance of a medal”.
“I haven’t thought about Boey not being there, I’m just focusing on myself,” Leung said. “We message a lot, and she’s always sending videos and pictures of her cats.
“We can’t change that we’re not in the team pursuit, we have to concentrate on what we do have.”
Lau, the ITT Games bronze medallist from 2023, acknowledged there would be “an element of danger” in Sunday’s race against the clock, but said “you have to manage the risk”.
“You need to be brave, but also know your limits,” he said.
“My medal last time shows I have the level to be competitive, and I’ve gained more experience and grown physically in the past three years.”
Dagorne reckons Lau is among around six riders in a stacked field capable of claiming a podium finish. The competition has been heightened after talented 23-year-old Athit Poulard last year changed his allegiance from France to his mother’s native country of Thailand.
“I know my limits and how to pace a time trial course better than I did in 2023,” Lau said. “Your opponents grow, too, but you have to see where you’re at. It’s not really my type of course, but I’ve prepared for it and I’m very eager to get the race going.”
Lau, who will turn 30 on the day of the men’s road race next Wednesday, when he will compete alongside teammates Wu Chun-yin, 20, and 19-year-old Daniel Yip Hon-man, raised the possibility of stepping aside after next year to leave the coast clear for the coming generation.
“I haven’t lost the passion but I’ll see if I still have the energy,” he said. “I’ll ride next year, for sure, then think about it at the end.”


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City rider expects to shrug off finger injury and go for glory in Japan, while Vincent Lau prepares for potentially his last Games road race


City rider expects to shrug off finger injury and go for glory in Japan, while Vincent Lau prepares for potentially his last Games road race.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}City rider expects to shrug off finger injury and go for glory in Japan, while Vincent Lau prepares for potentially his last Games road race

City rider expects to shrug off finger injury and go for glory in Japan, while Vincent Lau prepares for potentially his last Games road race