The year of 2018 comes to the end soon, and it’s time for me to review my life and work in this year, and plan and set targets for next year.

Starting with orienteering, this year is the first year of TrailO world ranking scheme. I have participated in 8 world ranking races in Africa and Europe, and got 50.19 in the best 6 (0.00 is theoretical best possible score, and 90.00 is the beginner score), ranking at the 94th in the world. While, in FootO sprint, I have participated in 3 world ranking races in Asia and Africa this year, combined with the latter half of 2017, I have got 607 points in the best 4.

I participated in the TrailO world championships the second time this year in TempO, but didn’t advance to the final. Despite this, the race was my best race in this year, with 5.59 world ranking points.

Locally, this year is my best year in sprint orienteering, in which I achieved more than 900 points in a ranking event the first time, and also ended up with a best-3 average of more than 900, making me qualified for elite class next year, in 2019. Also, I performed a duty of key official the first time, in the TempO qualification race organised by Y2Y where I was the course setter.

Due to orienteering, I also travelled a lot this year. I have been on 4 trips this year (January – February, March, July and October), and visited Europe 7 times in total (1 time in January, 3 times in February, 1 time in March, 1 time in July and 1 time in October). I have travelled to China, Finland, Egypt, Lithuania, Latvia and Czechia this year for orienteering, and visited Macau, Turkey, Taiwan and Russia in addition. I flew so much that I got SkyTeam elite status as a result.

Apart from orienteering, I also started serious swimming this year. Before this year, my longest continuous swim was 2.6 km Tolo Harbour race done in 2010. I did a 3.7 km round Middle Island race in November this year, and performed longer training up to 10 km afterwards. I have also joined the regular Saturday sessions by Open Water Swimmers of Hong Kong in the B team since summer this year.

In terms of speed, I have started taking my 1500 m times since May, and my time improved from 35’8″ in May, to 31’42” in the end of November (and an additional time of 29’56” in a short course pool in the end December), although my target of 30 minutes hasn’t been reached yet. I have joined the squad training of Swim Lab Asia (IHP Triathlon Program) since October, which I already hoped to join a few years before my graduation but didn’t got the prerequisite level at that time.

I didn’t devote much time to sailing this year, especially in the latter half, since the usual time allocated (Saturday afternoon) has since been used for open water swimming. However, I completed the intermediate windsurfing course in January, this was probably my only achievement in sailing this year.

My career has also gone through a major change this year. I started a job in an e-commerce company in March, however, I though the company was completely crap, therefore I quit after the probation period, ended the job in July. I returned to the iClass team in October, resuming the duty a year ago. (I joined the iClass team in October 2016 and left in October 2017, and returned in October 2018) One of the major reason that I returned was the relationship with HKU. As I work in HKU, I can join the IHP Triathlon Program squad training mentioned above at the HKU pool after work easily, and also visit the pool at other free times using staff or alumni membership. I’ve also met with Cameron Lai to discuss about OpenStreetMap, open data and GTFS, which is currently the technology which I am the most interested in.

I also started to learn Swedish this year, in order to prepare for possible a working holiday in Sweden after 2020.

I have some plans and targets for 2019. Orienteering will remain my first and foremost priority, which my targets include:

• Remain in the elite class in local sprint ranking in 2020
• Become a Hong Kong team member for the 1st Asian Trail Orienteering Championships, and get good result in it.
• Decrease my TrailO world ranking points to below 45.00

While for swimming, I have a very ambitious goal which I don’t know if it is achievable or not – swim the channel in 2021, during a working holiday that year. In order to know if I am ready for that challenge, I would like to try the cold half (a 15 km open water race in Hong Kong in winter) in 2020, if I can complete it that means I am ready for that challenge. Therefore, I need to train a lot in 2019, eventually build up to 15 km without wetsuit by the end of the year. Moreover, I also need to work on my speed as well. I hope I can get my 1500 m time within 30 minutes in February once the HKU 50 m pool reopens, 27 minutes in July to qualify for the Hong Kong cross-harbour race, and 25 minutes by the end of 2019. I will probably take 1 or 2 coached sessions at the squad, 1 or 2 additional sessions by myself, and also an open water session on the weekend every week, in order to have maximum benefit.

I also need to have more exposure in Swedish, in particular I have planned travels to Finland in May and July 2019. Some basic Swedish can help a lot in my trips to Finland. In this year, I travelled to Russia and Latvia knowing no Russian, and everything was troublesome. I couldn’t even read a single word in menus.

If I have time I would also like to work on the GTFS project with Cameron Lai as well.

I wish I can achieve my targets above, and also wish everyone a happy new year!