A team of Hong Kong youngsters won 79 medals in the World Rope Skipping Championships in Sweden last month.
Online videos of their record-breaking performance have gone viral, causing a sensation.
Timothy Ho, Tommy Chow, Angus Wong, Man Lau and Parco Shum broke the Double Dutch Speed Relay record by jumping 671.5 times in three minutes, beating the previous record of 603.
Chow also won the individual freestyle gold medal and the Hong Kong team defended their Group Demo Cup crown from 2014.
Aged 18 to 21, Ho, Chow, Wong, Lau and Shum formed their record-breaking team eight years ago.
Lau said they were so focused during the competition they did not realise they had broken the world record.
"I didn’t dare to watch the screen to see how many jumps we made during the match."
In Double Dutch, two long ropes are turned in opposite directions and are skipped by one or more players who are substituted after 45 seconds.
Labour of love
The team say they skip out of sheer passion for the sport, working hard to develop their speedy skills.
Lau said: "Apart from training our muscles, we practice foot stepping, even without the rope. It's not just the one skipping who needs to be fast, but also the two swinging the rope. We also need to practise speed-jumping through the ropes and trading places without missing a rope rotation. So co-ordination among the four of us is very important."
Chow said his risk-taking attitude helped him secure Hong Kong's first individual freestyle gold medal, beating tough competition from Australia.
"I think I won because my steps are creative and I made no mistakes. I was so happy because the Australian athlete had won the title for five years and it was the first time for Hong Kong to win. I am honoured."
Despite winning glory for Hong Kong, this line-up will not defend their title at the next championships in two years. They will instead train a new squad to take their place.
Ho said: "Hong Kong women athletes in this area are generally weaker than those of other countries. So Man and Tommy are going to form a female and male mixed team to train up the ladies. Angus and another team member Parco Shum will form another team to train the men. And I will be a coach to teach children. We hope they can beat our results."
Crown defenders
Defending the title was as difficult as winning it. The 16-member Hong Kong squad won the Group Demo Cup in the 2014 world championship, but they faced a lot of difficulties in defending the title this year with injured team members.
Team member Kelvin Man said: "As most of our team members are not full time athletes it is difficult to gather us all to practise. We had not even finished practising the entire routine when we arrived in Sweden. We had to practise at 5.30 in the morning and again after some of our members finished other matches at night."
Another member Cheuk Ching-yi added: "We enjoyed it though, because we were not alone. We got together just because we love this sport."
Man said thrilling the crowd is more important than winning the competition.
"I think we won not just because of the difficult moves. We see this as a performance more than a competition. We focus more on creating amusement and entertainment. We smile when we perform. We won because we enjoy the show and interact with the audience, and the audience enjoys it too."
They hope more people support the Hong Kong team at the next world championship in 2018.
