Vivian Kong Man-Wai’s Career Highlights, Historic Olympic Medal, World Ranking and More

Vivian Kong Man-wai entered her name in Hong Kong’s Olympics Hall of Fame when she clinched a historic gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She is only the third member of this elite club. Bagging a glorious victory at Women’s Épée Individual, she defeated the French fencer Auriane Mallo and brought home Hong Kong’s first medal at the Paris Olympics 2024.

Her landmark victory not only sparked celebration across the Special Administrative Region (SAR) but also transcended boundaries as the soft-spoken athlete was being excessively praised on Chinese social media for her excellent display of resilience and Sportsmanship.

With her victory, the city secured a podium finish at two consecutive Games for the first time. 27-year-old fencer Cheung Ka-long also secured gold in the Men’s Foil Individual Fencing event on 29 July 2024. In a heart-thumping match, Cheung defeated Italy’s Filippo Macchi with a tight score of 15-14.

Windsurfer Lee Lai-shan was the first athlete from Harbour City to have an Olympic medal draped around her neck. She won a gold medal in the women’s mistral boardsailing class at the 1996 Summer Olympics. To this date, she is the only non-fencer athlete to win an Olympic medal for Hong Kong. Cheung was the second athlete to bag gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Now, Kong has joined the glorious club with her win.

Fresh from her victory, Vivian Kong announced on August 4 that she is retiring from professional fencing. As we look forward to the next chapter of her journey, let’s take a moment to revisit her most remarkable achievements — from her career highlights to brilliant academic accomplishments that have set a benchmark for every Asian kid.

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Vivian Kong Man-wai’s career highlights

Introduction to fencing

Born on 8 February 1994, Vivian Kong moved to Canada with her parents at the age of two only to return to Hong Kong four years later. From a young age, she picked up several extracurricular activities, such as playing the piano, painting, ballet and ice skating. She also became interested in playing guzheng — a Chinese plucked zither. However, she could not help but fall in love with Taekwondo.

Although she earned a black belt in Taekwondo, Kong’s mother, Ellen, encouraged her to continue ballet lessons and ice skating. According to the International Fencing Federation, the athlete admitted that although she enjoyed dancing and ice skating, she was not ”good at it”.

It was her father, KF Kong, who introduced her to fencing at 11. Kong was instantly fascinated and described fencing as the ”ballet of Sports”. It looks like her father knew better as she proved her merit within two years of picking up the sport.

At just 13, she became the Under-17 National Championships winner in China. She represented the Hong Kong Sports Institute. Vivian Kong Man-wai trained under the expert guidance of coaches Zheng and Octavian-Petru Zidaru, who significantly contributed to her success. According to the Olympics’ official site, the five-time Olympian and seven-time world championship medallist, Romanian left-handed épée fencer Ana Maria Popescu was her inspiration.

The rise of Vivian Kong and becoming the world’s top-ranked player

 

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Vivian Kong Man-wai took a sabbatical from school to focus solely on the Rio 2016 Olympics. Her training included sparring against some of the best players overseas. Beating the 2009 world champion, Russia’s Lyubov Shutova, she became the first-ever fencer from Hong Kong to win an Olympic match in Rio.

Between her journey from Rio 2016 to Tokyo 2020, her parents built a much bigger cabinet to display her shining medals from tournaments like the World Cup, Asian Championships, Grand Prix and World Championships.

Kong also had her fair share of injuries in the last decade. Before the 2017 World Championships, she tore her left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in July. She underwent knee surgery and turned vegan to speed up her recovery. Within three months, she was back in her white suit to wield the silver sword.

In 2018, the fencer won her first gold medal in the Individual Women’s Épée in the Asian Championship. She repeated the feat in 2022 in South Korea.

She also won the FIE Women’s Épée World Cup in Havana in 2019 and became the first female athlete to win the title in Hong Kong. It was a moment of pride for Hong Kong as the young fencer became their first athlete to stand at the World Championships in Budapest in July 2019. But everything comes at a price. Kong tore her right ACL after achieving the World no 1 title in March.

She underwent yet another surgery but recovered quickly from the grade two injury. The resilient athlete bounced back stronger by returning to the top ranking by winning the World Asian Championships crown in Wuxi in 2023.

The 2024 Paris Olympic gold medal was a challenging achievement. It also appeared quite unattainable at one point in the match. In a remarkable comeback in the dramatic match, she recovered from 7-1 down to win 13-12 in sudden death. Her victory was all more impressive considering she won against France’s Auriane Mallo-Breton who had the constant backing from her cheering hometown crowd at the Grand Palais.

Man Wai Vivian Kong is an Olympic champion! 🥇
Hong Kong wins its first gold medal of the Games 🇭🇰
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Man Wai Vivian Kong est championne olympique ! 🥇
Hong Kong décroche sa première médaille d’or des Jeux 🇭🇰#Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/dTkGWVwgVt

— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) July 27, 2024

A look at Vivian Kong’s impressive career stats

 

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The distinguished fencer rightfully received the moniker, Queen of Swords. To sum up her impressive titles, the left-handed epeeist has won four gold, three silver and four bronze medals in the FIE Fencing World Cup. She bagged two bronze medals in the World Fencing Championship. Kong clinched three gold and one silver medal at the Zone Championships along with two gold, one silver and two bronze at the Grand Prix.

Despite her long career as a fencer, it was only in 2024 that she bagged an Olympic medal — a gold at Women’s Épée Individual. Vivian Kong’s ranking, as of 2024, is World No. 1 with 265.000 points, a position she had achieved in 2019 as well.

Following her win at the 2024 Olympics, the medal tally for Vivian Kong, from all her major tournament appearances, stands at 11 gold, 5 silver and 9 bronze.

Her academic accomplishments

 

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The 30-year-old fencer is every Asian parent’s dream child. She is just as gifted academically as she is in the arts. The Olympic gold medallist studied at ESF’s Beacon Hill School before graduating from Sha Tin College. Kong graduated from Stanford University’s international relations program in California in 2016.

As if graduating from Stanford wasn’t enough, she went on to receive a master’s degree in Law at Renmin University of China in 2019. Her impressive qualifications do not end there. While living her Olympic dream, Kong is also pursuing a Juris Doctor degree at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

She is proficient in three languages — Cantonese, English and Mandarin.

Vivian Kong’s awards and honours

The Hong Kong Sports Press Association named Vivian Kong the 2019 Female Athlete of the Year. She was also the flag bearer for Hong Kong, China at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia.

In October 2021, Vivian Kong was selected as one of the 10 awardees for Outstanding Young Persons in Hong Kong. The award was presented to young achievers from various professions.

(Hero and Featured Image Credits: Franck Fife/AFP)

This story first appeared on Augustman Hong Kong