Lei Cheok Ieong : Training Persistently and Uncomplainingly

16-year-old Macao Wushu athlete, Lei Cheok Ieong, has been on the Macao Wushu team for seven years. He has represented Macao at the Asian Junior Wushu Championships and the World Junior Wushu Championships many times and has achieved remarkable results. Lei, aiming to advance to the adult group competitions, says that he will set a target for every contest he attends from now on and do his best to go for medals.

Lei liked to watch Kungfu movies on TV when he was a child and got to learn about Wushu when he was very little thanks to his Wushu-practicing father. Seeing Wushu as a demanding sport and hoping to fight as well as Kungfu stars all along, Lei was able to practice Wushu for eleven whole years persistently and uncomplainingly.

As Lei digs deeper into Wushu, he starts to aim at difficult moves with swords, cudgels and challenging routine moves. How to do a beautiful figure-8 movement with a broadsword or a cudgel; how to stay in vertical circles at a routine competition; how to hit with vigor by moving fast in the right rhythm without compromising the vertical circles at all – are questions on Lei’s mind all the time.

Lei has represented Macao at three World Junior Wushu Championships and three Asia Junior Wushu Championships and won two golds and four silvers. At the 2014 World Junior Wushu Championships where he represented Macao for the first time, as Lei recalled, he was all about winning and got a gold for group C broadsword at the end. The most unforgettable competition, however, was the 2017 Asian Junior Wushu Championships when Lei just advanced to group B and was left empty-handed by his powerful fellow contenders. After that defeat, Lei was determined to train even harder to improve his Wushu techniques.