It was a small but significant slip of the tongue that Boey Leung Bo-yee was quick to correct.
“I still set myself a routine, I get up for training … no, not for training, to ride my bike,” said Leung, as she launched into an explanation of how she fills her days after bringing down the curtain on a fine cycling career.
She does not plan to sit idle. Barely two weeks after bowing out on a high, as part of the Hong Kong team pursuit quartet that established a new city record to claim bronze from March’s Asian Track Championships, Leung was in Taiwan to compete in a Spartan Race, which tasks runners with clearing obstacles littered across daunting courses.
Leung will compete in a cycling e-race on Sunday “for fun”, she coaches her sport and from September she will study psychology at the Education University of Hong Kong.
Her interest in the subject stems from six months of counselling she received after competing in the Olympics in 2021.
“Going to the Olympics was my dream but after achieving it I just felt so empty,” Leung told the South China Morning Post.
“There was quite a long period of time when I felt so unmotivated. I’d forced myself to really focus on the Olympics for so long, then afterwards I think I burned out. My counsellor really helped me through a hard time.”