On-yee ng

WORLD CHAMPION SNOOKER PLAYER

on-yee ng is just back in Hong Kong from the UK after playing at snooker’s Mecca, the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield – in the men’s Challenge Tour. The three-time women’s world champion has been playing snooker since she was 13 years old, and her passion for the sport is as fervent as ever.

In Hong Kong, snooker halls are often portrayed as shady places full of gangsters, but to Ng, it was like home. “My father is a veteran snooker player,” she says, “and was a manager at a snooker club, so I just followed him and hung out in the club when I was young. I didn’t do well at school, and I was so addicted to online games that my father just took me with him wherever he went, hoping one day I’d wake up. I didn’t really develop an interest in snooker until I followed my dad to a match. He looked so charming in his outfit – that’s why I started to play snooker.”

Since then, Ng has put herself through meticulous training and taken part in multiple local and international snooker events. In 2009, she won her first amateur women’s title at the IBSF World

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Snooker championships, and ultimately won the Women’s World Championship in 2015, 2017 and 2018. This year she has the opportunity to participate in the World Snooker Championship and the Men’s Challenge Tour.

A lot of people might think that her next step would be to defend her title, but Ng proved everyone wrong. “After winning the Women’s World Championship, I was fortunate enough to be invited to take part in the World Snooker Championship, and it was something else,” she says. “Playing against male snooker players made me realise how weak I was.” To her, it was not about winning or losing, but improving her skills and gaining experience. “I was terrible at dealing with pressure, but even though I recently lost 6:10 to Alan McManus, I feel that I’ve improved tremendously since the first game.”

What’s the daily routine like for her? “I usually train for four to six hours, and apart from that maybe another gym session, which focuses on my core, arm and back muscles,” she says. “Snooker might seem like a static activity, but it actually requires a lot of strength. Take the World Snooker Championship for example, I played for 15 hours straight with only a 45-minute break.”

As she looks towards a bright future, Ng harbours dreams of working in another industry. “I love animals, and I have a dog at home. If I’m not playing snooker, I want to get a degree in veterinary nursing and take care of sick and injured animals. I’m a sucker for animals!”

by the time Oscar Coggins had completed his A-levels, he’d already competed in 27 international triathlons, won two Junior Asian Championships and qualified for the 2018 Asian Games. And he did all that without missing a single training session, even during exams period.

Not just a top athlete but a top student as well, Coggins aced his exams and earned a spot in the engineering programme at Loughborough University

– a placement he has since deferred for a gap year of triathlons. His goal? To pick up as many points as he can during the qualifying period and represent Hong Kong at next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

“Hong Kong has basically been my only home all my life,” he says. “I’m immensely proud to represent Hong Kong and to have experienced a huge portion of my athletic development here.”

Now barely 20 years old, Coggins entered the world of triathlon at 13, mainly due to his mother’s support and encouragement. In just two years, he would make the under-20 Hong Kong National Team and place second at the 2015 Hong Kong National Championships.

Coggins credits his steady success to his parents and to his coach, Andrew Wright – a fellow athlete and former Hong Kong triathlon hero. “I think he’s managed my development very well: I’ve consistently improved, had no major injuries and am more invested in the sport than ever,” Coggins says.

The one blemish on his career to date is a bureaucratic one. In 2018, Coggins missed out on the 2018 Asian Games – which he and his team had worked so hard to qualify for – because his change in nationality from British to Hong Kong was not yet finalised.

It was a huge disappointment that he handled like a champ. “Poor results are inevitable in triathlon and a huge amount of time and effort are invested in every race. So, when you fall short of your goals, it can sometimes be difficult to pick yourself up and do it all again.”

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True to form, Coggins followed up the bureaucratic snafu by competing in – and winning – the 2018 Asia Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan, securing his first senior title while still technically a junior athlete.

Coggins is now fully into the 2019 triathlon circuit: competing in races, heading to training camps in Australia and Switzerland, and training three times a day.

So far, he’s been posting strong and consistent results. Fifty-fifth in the ITU rankings and second on the Asian continent at the time of our interview, he should be well on his way to an Olympic qualifying slot.

“I aim to be strong enough that if other athletes see my name on the start list, they know it will be a hard race,” says Coggins. “Not be unbeatable, but just to force everyone to fight for every inch with no respite.”

As for his best piece of advice? “Invest in what you’re passionate about. Giving it your best shot and failing is better than a lifetime of wondering what could have been.”

“I aim to be strong enough that if other athletes see my name on the start list, they know it will be a hard race”