楊秀美

English

Yeung Sau-mei, nicknamed Ah Mi, is a Hong Kong women's volleyball player. Standing 1.82 metres tall and playing as an outside hitter, she was a mainstay of both the Hong Kong national team and the local club International. In October 2017 she announced she would join Thailand's Rangsit Volleyball Club, becoming the first Hong Kong woman to play professional volleyball. At the time she worked as a construction site safety officer; to pursue the dream she resigned from a stable job, explaining that a former teammate had introduced her to the Thai club, which was looking for an import and was impressed by her play. Because Hong Kong volleyball was not yet professional, players who wanted to turn pro had to go abroad - a route Hong Kong men had taken before her, but she was the first woman. She also recalled weighing the decision against the fact that her mother had just had surgery, and against her job and finances. At home she helped International retain the President's Cup invitational title. Earlier she was part of Hong Kong's team at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, where she told reporters she worked on a construction site by day and could only train after hours, with the squad training less than eight hours a week - a picture of an era when most Hong Kong women players balanced amateur sport with full-time jobs. Her move overseas is seen as a breakthrough for the professionalisation of the women's game in Hong Kong.