Shek Wai Hung (; born 10 October 1991) is an artistic gymnast from

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. He is the current Asian Games champion on vault.

Gymnastics career

Shek started gymnast training at the age of six. In 2008, Shek participated in the Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships, where he won a gold medal in the junior vault final. At the 2010 Asian Games, Shek placed eighth in the individual all-around, and sixth on vault. In 2011, Shek participated in the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

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, Japan, where he qualified fourth with an average score of 16.237 into the vault final – the first time ever for a Hong Kong gymnast to qualify into an event final at World Championships level. He came seventh in the final, having taken a big step forward on his first vault, with an average score of 15.950. Shek qualified to the 2012 Summer Olympics in

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via the Olympic Test Event in January that year. There, he finished 12th in the all-around qualification with a score of 86.482. This was the first time for Hong Kong to qualify two gymnasts, Shek and teammate

Angel Wong Wong Chui-ling, Angel () or better known as Chui Ling to her many fans is a Hong Kong-born Malaysia-based host, speaker, soft skills coach, TV and radio personality, and entrepreneur. The success of her TV and radio programmes has long ago ceme ...

to artistic gymnastics competition at the Olympic Games. The Olympics, however, proved to be a disappointing one to him. A fall on his first vault during qualification prevents Shek from advancing into the vault final, his strongest event. Despite consideration of retiring from elite gymnastics, Shek continued his training after the disappointment at the London Olympics. In 2014, Shek participated in the Asian Games held in Incheon,

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

, in which he had a surprising victory over the reigning Olympic Champion, World Champion and Asian Games champion on vault, Yang Hak-seon by a narrow margin of 0.016 points. Shek also made history of being the first gymnast from Hong Kong to win a medal in artistic gymnastics event at the Asian Games. Just two weeks after the Asian Games, Shek took part in the

2014 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships The 2014 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships was held in Nanning, China at the Guangxi Gymnasium from 3–12 October 2014. The competition was the fourth time a World Artistic Gymnastics Championships has been held in the continent of Asia. ...

in Nanning, China, where he came sixth in the vault final with an average score of 14.999. In 2015, Shek competed at the

held in

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, where he came 36th in the individual all-around qualification and 10th on vault, being the second reserve of the vault final. In 2018, Shek participated in the

2018 Asian Games The 2018 Asian Games ( id, Pesta Olahraga Asia 2018 or ''Asian Games 2018''), officially known as the 18th Asian Games and also known as Jakarta-Palembang 2018 or Indonesia 2018, was a continental multi-sport event that was held from 18 Augus ...

held in Jakarta,

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, where he won the gold medal in the Men's Vault.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shek, Wai Hung 1991 births Living people Hong Kong male artistic gymnasts Gymnasts at the 2012 Summer Olympics Gymnasts at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic gymnasts for Hong Kong Gymnasts at the 2010 Asian Games Gymnasts at the 2014 Asian Games Gymnasts at the 2018 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for Hong Kong Asian Games medalists in gymnastics Medalists at the 2014 Asian Games Medalists at the 2018 Asian Games