In Macao, sports athletes are mostly amateurs, which means that the majority of the athletes have to focus on their work on one hand and to train for their athletic program on the other. The time and effort that they sacrifice for their training is comparable to their professional counterparts. They are also as serious in their training as the professionals. This alone however is not enough to uplift the standards and for continual improvements. The athletes must not be ignorant about the outside world. They must go abroad to see and learn how athletes train in other countries in order to broaden their visions. The only problem is that holidays and annual leave from their jobs are not sufficiently long enough for the amateur athletes to join with the professionals in any training sessions abroad. Nevertheless, there are usually more solutions than one can imagine. Since they cannot find time to go out, why not bring the foreign athletes in?

With the support of the Sports Bureau, the Macau Karate-do Federation once again invited the Iran national team, who has won in international karate competitions, to Macao to train with the local karate athletes for nearly a month.  The team includes a number of world champions, and they provided the Macao athletes with precious suggestions and tips in terms of technique, psychology, physical capabilities and experience.

Wong Sut I: Learned a Lot   

Wong Sut I started off as an amateur karate player but is now a professional and she said that it is rare that the Macao team can gather all team members to go training abroad together, which makes this training period with the world champions of the Iran national team a very unique opportunity. She said that the coaching from the champs brought a new and fresh experience to them. Besides fighting techniques, they learned a lot about the preparation work before competitions. The champs also told them about their own training systems and more importantly, the champs showed them their determination to win, an attitude which is exactly what the Macao team needs to have.

Macao athletes must believe in themselves

Amir Mahdi Zadeh who won the 2012 World Karate Championship title pointed out that Macao athletes are good fighters and they take training very seriously. He also mentioned that the team has an excellent coach who has done very well during the Asian Games in the last few years and he believed that the team will continue to improve. However, he also noted that Macao athletes can do much better and should believe in themselves more because it is very important to show confidence when competing in a game.