Hong Kong yo-yo champion wins world title with local brand
Hong Kong's Chan Chun-hei won the world yo-yo championship in Japan in August, using a Hong Kong-brand yo-yo. He took six months off work to prepare, reflecting the rise of Hong Kong players in the sport.
Hong Kong representatives claimed the top two spots in the two-hand looping freestyle category at the World Yo-Yo Contest in Himeji, Japan, in August. Chan Chun-hei took first place, while Liu Man-kei finished second.
In an interview with RTHK's programme Financial New Thinking, Chan said the result shows that Hong Kong competitors have reached the level of the world's top players. He credited the development of the internet, which allows Hong Kong athletes to learn techniques from skilled players around the world more easily.
Chan noted that the competition tests not only yo-yo control but also coordination with movements and music. To prepare for the contest, he stopped working for six months to focus entirely on practice.
Having started yo-yoing in 2002, Chan said the biggest challenge was learning unfamiliar tricks for the competition, or reworking moves he had performed for years from scratch.
Chan observed that besides Hong Kong, Japan also has many professional players, while South Korea has been catching up rapidly in recent years. In Europe and the United States, the United States and the Czech Republic have relatively large numbers of yo-yo participants.
Chan also revealed that the yo-yo he used in the competition was a Hong Kong brand. The brand has been established for many years and its products are sold in yo-yo specialty stores around the world.
