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SCMP Sport

Hong Kong’s Ryan Choi Chun-yin came with a whisker of winning Asian Games gold on Tuesday, and said after suffering a losing run in mahjong he felt his luck had been about to change.
The 28-year-old former world champion had dominated for much of the day, and even when behind, launched a stunning fightback in the final of the men’s individual foil competition.
Battling local hero Kazuki Iimura, Choi found himself in a hole early on at the Aichi Sky Expo, and slipped 4-2 behind quite quickly.
Iimura turned that into an 8-4 and then 10-6 lead, before Choi found his feet and battled back to 12-12. But roared on by a vocal partisan crowd, Iimura pulled ahead for good to win 15-13.
“I’m very upset now because I just lost the match, but I think overall I’ll be happy in 10 minutes because it’s still a silver medal,” Choi said.
“Today I feel pretty lucky. I liked all my match-ups. I think this luck just came to me. Sometimes it happens and you don’t know why. I can’t explain it but I felt it would be a lucky day.”

While compatriot Cheung Ka-long had a day to forget, crashing out in the last 32 having struggled through the pool stage despite being defending champion, Choi emerged unbeaten from his pool, earned a bye into the last 16, and then ran the table on the way to the final.
A close semi-final with South Korea’s Youn Jeong-hyun aside, Choi had appeared largely untroubled, until he came up against Kazuki.
“I’ve played a lot of mahjong games with my friends recently and I lost them all,” Choi said. “I feel like God was planning to give me all the luck today.
“Finally today, after suffering from losing in mahjong games, I get paid off.”
Unsurprisingly, Iimura was “genuinely happy” to have been able to win in front of the home fans who had given him “so much power”.
The 22-year-old said he had been able to hear them chanting for him when he was briefly struggling during the bout.
“To be honest, I was panicking when I didn’t manage to score, and my head went blank,” he said. “But the support of everyone and their chants made me feel calm.
“All my family members are here in the stands. I want to dedicate this medal to my family and the people who have supported me.”
Choi will eventually consider this to have been a good day, especially when Hong Kong’s athletes combined to add gold, another silver and a bronze to the city’s medal tally, which crept up to 12 overall.
Siobhan Haughey’s heroics in the pool came after cyclist Chloe Leung Wing-yee came third in the women’s road race, and wushu exponent Lau Chi-long second in the men’s nanquan and nangun event.
Lau picked up third-place finishes in the morning and afternoon sessions, giving him 19.456 points, just behind China’s Li Jianming, who took gold with 19.563 points. Chinese Taipei’s Liu Chang-min claimed bronze with a score of 19.430.
The Hongkonger said the key to his medal had been about harnessing the pressure that came with competing at such a high level.
“This sport is so stressful,” Lau said. “You need concentration. You need full body preparation and commitment. Physically and mentally you have to do it over 100 per cent.
“The stress is so much. Stress can be very useful though, and you need to learn how to control it in your performance.”
Away from the medals, and Hong Kong’s men and women struggled to make an impact in the team table tennis. The women were knocked out 3-2 by Singapore in the first knockout round, the men made it to the quarter-finals before being swept aside 3-0 by South Korea.


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Ryan Choi loses breathtaking final to Japan’s Kazuki Iimura at Aichi Sky Expo after battling back from 10-6 down


Ryan Choi loses breathtaking final to Japan’s Kazuki Iimura at Aichi Sky Expo after battling back from 10-6 down.


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Asian Games: Ryan Choi ‘very upset’ after falling just short in battle for foil gold

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ryan Choi loses breathtaking final to Japan’s Kazuki Iimura at Aichi Sky Expo after battling back from 10-6 down

Ryan Choi loses breathtaking final to Japan’s Kazuki Iimura at Aichi Sky Expo after battling back from 10-6 down