Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, cropped.
Vegan fencer Vivian Kong has made history for Hong Kong, winning the women's épée World Cup in Havana, Cuba on Saturday. She beat France's Auriane Mallo 15-8 in the final to become the first Hong Kong fencer, man or woman, to win a World Cup title.
Kong, who turns 25 next month, is now ranked seventh in the world, and the win boosts her hopes of qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
It caps a remarkable comeback. In 2017 she had knee surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament. A year later, she won gold at the Asian Fencing Championships in June and took two medals at the Asian Games in Jakarta, where she carried Hong Kong's flag.
Kong had been thinking about going vegan for years, and the injury finally made her do it. She cut out all animal products, despite doubts from other athletes and her family, and says the change sped up her recovery and let her train harder. Before the Asian Games she told the South China Morning Post why she now talks about it:
I can be an example to show it's possible, and it's more motivation for me to work harder, have better results, and tell my story about how eating plant-based foods made me better and made me feel better too.
Fencing is all about explosive footwork and sharp reactions over a long day of bouts, and Kong is showing that plants can fuel both.
We first wrote about Kong when she won Asian Championship épée gold last summer. Canadian figure skater Meagan Duhamel retired as an Olympic champion, and US striker Alex Morgan took the CONCACAF Golden Boot. And The Economist has declared 2019 the year of the vegan.
En garde, powered by plants.