Camille Cheng

An athlete like Camille Cheng really needs no introduction – she’s represented Hong Kong twice at the Olympics, first in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro and then again in the 2020 Tokyo Games. She’s a five-time Asian Games medallist and is still intensely training for the forthcoming Asian Games in November, and the Paris Olympics next year. 

Cheng also recently co-founded Mind the Waves, a mental-health platform she set up with swimmers Stephanie Au (a fellow 40 Under 40 alumnus) and Jamie Yeung. Using her academic qualifications – Cheng graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a bachelor’s in psychology, a masters in industrial/organisational psychology and a graduate certificate in sports and performance psychology – she wants to promote a holistic approach to wellbeing. “We want to normalise talking about mental health and mental wellbeing in Hong Kong, to get to a point where mental wellbeing is viewed and treated the same way as physical wellbeing,” she says. 

“I hope to push boundaries using my voice and my platform to talk about things I’m passionate about,” says Cheng. This includes sharing an authentic account of an athlete’s journey in Hong Kong and all its ups and downs. It’s a gruelling and lonely journey that involves years of training each day for a race that lasts less than 30 seconds. Or in Cheng’s case, much less than that. Her main stroke is freestyle and her personal best in the 50-metres freestyle category is 25.74 seconds, which she set in 2020. 

A normal day’s training begins with two hours of swimming practice at 7am, followed by breakfast and journalling (her favourite part of the day), meetings and work, physio or a nap, followed in the afternoon by a second practice session – sometimes in the pool, sometimes in the gym, or both. Rest and repeat. 

“I’ve just turned 30 and I’m still swimming professionally to represent Hong Kong at my third Olympics,” she says. “I want to show myself and others that age is just a number, and to inspire others to go for their dreams no matter how non-traditional.”