New Stars

Interview of a Handball Athlete-Cum Student
Wu Lei Ling
Yuen Long Handball Association

Ms. Wu Lei Ling, The member of the Hong Kong Handball Representative Team

Handball is a vibrant and exciting sport. It combines the characteristics of basketball and football. The players use their hands for dribbling, passing, receiving and shooting, but at the both ends of the court are not baskets, but goals. In this issue, we interview a member of the Hong Kong Handball Representative Team Wu Lei Ling.

Learning to be persistent and never give up easily

When Wu was in primary school, she first learnt about handball at the invitation of a friend. She has played the sport for more than ten years now. She thinks the most attractive thing about handball is that it enables her to make a lot friends, who strive for success together and support each other. Also, playing whole-heartedly and scoring is a most thrilling experience. She admits that she was once capricious and never persisted in anything. Handball teaches her to be persistent and not to give up easily. She was once captain of her team. This allowed her to improve her leadership and communication skills, and to mature as a person.

Working hard as a handball player and a student

Wu is a student. It is not easy to handle both her studies and handball. Besides being a member of the Hong Kong representative team she plays for her university team. Every week she spends three days on training. If there is an important tournament, the training of the Hong Kong team will be more intensive. To prepare for the Asian Games, she once trained every day of the week. The physical and mental pressure on her is not hard to imagine. Between handball and her studies, Wu says she is trying her best to strike a balance. She works hard on her handball skills, but she will never give up her studies. The support that her family and friends offer motivates her to continue to do this.

Preparing for competitions and winning as a team

Wu is a seasoned player. She has represented Hong Kong in many international competitions, including the Incheon Asian Games in 2014 and the South Asian Cup in 2015. To prepare for the Asian Games, she and her teammates trained hard for more than four months and were under great pressure. In a match in the Asian Games, they met the Thailand team, whose playing level was similar to theirs. They won by one point, went to the next round and finished sixth in the Asian Games. The team was united. Its morale was high. Wu was deeply touched. “Even though I was on the bench, I wanted to pass all my strength to the teammates on the field”. She will never forget their team spirit.

Attachment to her community sports club

Wu told us that her community sports club has had a great influence on her handball career. She joined the Yuen Long Handball Association when she was in form three in secondary school. She received professional training there and mastered fundamentals of handball skills. A few years later, she received more advanced coaching, took part in an open selection process and made the Hong Kong team. She has a strong attachment to the Yuen Long Handball Association. Even though she needs to train with the Hong Kong team and her university team, she also joins the trainings and competitions of the association.

A confident outlook

Wu is confident about the future of local handball. She hopes that Hong Kong will have more indoor venues which handball teams can use as training bases. She also hopes that there will be more opportunities for overseas trainings and competitions, which allow exchanges with other teams, learning from them and enrichment of her experience.