Tiffany Yue targets leap into history with bid for Olympics
Hong Kong athlete aims to become first woman from city to compete in the long jump at Games
Tiffany Yue Nga-yan knows exactly what she needs to do to become the first woman to represent Hong Kong at the Olympics in the long jump – and it will mean matching her personal best at least three times over the next few weeks.
As the 26-year-old enters the final stretch of a crucial qualifying campaign for the Summer Games in Paris, her focus is on breaking into the top 32 in the world.
Yue is not that far removed from the 6.50 metres with which she managed to win bronze last year at the Asian Games, a distance that, if repeated, should help her make history.
Yue, who has been training in London for the past five months, is back in the city to compete in the Hong Kong Athletics Championships on May 4 and 5.
“It’s special to be at home and be competing in Hong Kong again. I’m really looking forward to the championships,” Yue said.
National Olympic committees (NOCs) can send three athletes inside the world’s top 32 to the Paris Games. Taking into account the three-per-country rule, Yue is ranked 43.
World rankings are based on the average of the best five jumps over the qualifying period and weighted by the importance of the event. Male and female athletes who jump 8.27m and 6.86m, respectively, but are not in the top 32 can also qualify.
After competing in Hong Kong, Yue will head to meetings in Europe and said if she pulled three 6.50m jumps out of the bag, she should make it to Paris in July.
“I’ll have to have about two or three more competitions where I’m jumping at 6.50 metres or above, and then I guess it’s pretty secure,” she said.
Hong Kong is not known for its track and field prowess. Only Chu Ming, at the 1964 Tokyo Games, and Chan Ming-tai, at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, have represented the city in long jump.
In January, Yue jumped 6.35m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting in Kazakhstan, before leaping 6.45m at the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Iran in February.
Yue said one reason for the improvement was spending the past five months with coach Anny Chan in London. “We are working on the run-up and take-off [and] there are a lot of different drills ... to fix my problems.”
Chan and Yue had been together since she started competing in 2014 right up until 2022, when Chan moved to London and Swede Rolf Ohman stepped in for a year. But that did not work out. Yue and Chan were reunited four months before her medal effort in Hangzhou.
“The special part is her trying to tailor-make everything [in training] for me,” Yue said.
The special part is her trying to tailor-make everything [in training] for me TIFFANY YUE, ON COACH ANNY CHAN