【Cover Stoey】Lee Rang: Before the Light/ 《SUPERNOVA》李讓：在世界看見以前
At nineteen, Lee Rang has already been fencing for more than a decade. In June 2026, he made it all the way to the individual men’s épée final at the Asian Fencing Championships in New Delhi, India. He defeated Kazakhstan’s Ruslan Kurbanov 15:12 in the semi-final before facing Japan’s Yu Yamada in the final, eventually taking silver after an 8:15 defeat. The medal made him the first Taiwanese male fencer to win an individual medal at the Asian Fencing Championships. But when you actually sit down with Lee and talk about fencing, the medal is hardly what he talks about most.
He talks about losing, about having an off day, about shutting out the noise around him, and about the fact that an athlete simply cannot be at their best every single day.
Lee first took up fencing in his first year of primary school. The reason was actually quite simple. His primary school happened to have a fencing club, and his parents were fans of The Mask of Zorro, so they encouraged him to give it a try. In his second year, he entered his first primary school competition and came first. It was his first taste of the sense of achievement that comes with winning, and it kept him fencing all the way to today.
Lee says, “I’m a very competitive person, and I don’t think anyone likes losing.”
He still remembers how frustrating it felt the first time he lost a competition. But his first thought was not to worry about losing again. It was to get straight back to fencing. “All I could think at the time was that I needed to get back to training, to get my hands on my épée again. I wanted to keep fencing, keep fencing. I just wanted to immerse myself in it.”
From primary school through secondary school, there were periods when he trained six days a week, from Monday to Saturday. After finishing training at school, he would head to a club and carry on fencing. For Lee at the time, the most straightforward way to become stronger was simply to keep practising. It was only later that he gradually came to realise: “But eventually I realised that isn’t necessarily a good thing.” A fierce desire to win can keep someone moving forwards, but becoming a better athlete may also mean learning when to stop.
When Today Isn’t 100 Per Cent
The hardest thing to deal with in competition is not always the opponent. Sometimes, it is yourself. You can spend a long time preparing, only to step onto the piste on the day of the competition and find that your body simply cannot get into the right state. Lee says this is one of the hardest things about competing. “I have my own way of looking at it. I think every day you have a certain level you can reach. If your limit that day isn’t 100 per cent, then you just do the best you can within that limit.”
Competitive sport is always about pushing limits. Faster, more precise, stronger. The pursuit of constant improvement can almost feel like a given. But real competition does not always happen under ideal conditions. The body gets tired, rhythm can fall apart, and things you have prepared can suddenly stop working. Lee is now learning to accept that.
If he is not at 100 per cent today, then he will do the best he possibly can within what he is capable of today. That does not mean lowering his standards. Quite the opposite. Once he steps onto the piste, he has to understand more clearly what he still has in him at that moment, and how best to use it.
Sometimes, There’s Nothing Playing in His Headphones
Before a competition, Lee likes to put on his headphones. “I like wearing headphones. Sometimes I’m not even playing anything, but they help me shut everything else out and give myself some space to think about how I’m going to fence and what sort of mindset I want to have when I step onto the piste.”
There does not necessarily need to be any sound coming through his headphones. All he wants is a space that temporarily separates him from the outside world. If he does need music, he chooses something that gets the adrenaline going. Asked what he has been listening to recently, he thinks for a moment before answering: Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’. But what is playing seems less important than the act of putting on the headphones itself.
Once he is actually competing, the whole world seems to shrink until there is only himself, his opponent and the épée in his hand.
Lee says, “When I get really far into a competition, maybe all the way to the final, it starts to feel like I’ve forgotten what stage of the competition I’m even at. I’m just focused on doing what I need to do in that moment. I win one bout, then another, and I’m completely focused on how I am right then.”
Lee describes that state as shutting out everything happening beyond the piste. “You stop caring about other people’s pressure or the way they look at you. You’re just focused on your fencing.” When he is fencing well, he does not even have time to keep thinking about how close he might be to a medal. The touch in front of him is the only thing that matters.
You Can’t Be Afraid to Lose
Learning to understand his own condition has not made Lee care any less about winning or losing. He knows very clearly that he wants to win. But at this point, winning and losing are no longer simply the numbers on the final scoreboard. They are also about whether, after a defeat, he can bring himself back to where he needs to be.
Lee says, “As an athlete, you can’t be afraid to lose. Once you’re afraid of losing, you can’t see yourself winning. As an athlete, you have to keep going. When you have a goal or a dream you want to achieve, you can’t let yourself be distracted too easily. If something throws you off or you’re not in good form, you need to have the mentality to pull yourself back.” It is also the first thing that comes to mind when he talks about what an athlete needs to have.
To Lee, hard work and training are simply things an athlete is supposed to do. If you want to fence better than someone else, you can train more, or you can adjust the way you train. But the further you go, the things you have to deal with are no longer purely technical. How do you stop a single win or loss from carrying you away? How do you find your rhythm again when you are having an off day? When other voices begin appearing around you, how do you still know where your own goal lies? None of these are things you can practise only when you have an épée in your hand.
His Hands on the Wheel
Away from fencing, one of Lee’s favourite things to do now is drive into the mountains. “When you’re driving, you’re the one holding the steering wheel. You can head up into the mountains, get some fresh air, spend some time by yourself and have a bit more time to talk to yourself.” It seems somewhat different from who he is on the piste, yet perhaps it is not so far removed after all.
Before a competition, he puts on his headphones to give himself some space to think. Away from the piste, he drives into the mountains, once again making a little time for himself.
When asked about a film that has stayed with him, Lee mentions Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson and starring Andrew Garfield. The film is based on the true story of Desmond Doss, a US Army medic during the Second World War. Because of his faith, Doss refused to carry a weapon or kill, and despite being questioned by his fellow soldiers, he remained determined to enter the battlefield as a medic.
What Lee remembers is precisely that choice. “I think that’s really important, because you don’t have to let other people confuse you about what you believe in. You can keep following your own path. In the end, he saved dozens of people, including dozens of soldiers who had looked down on him, and earned everyone’s respect. I think that takes an incredibly strong mentality. That’s a real man.”
What Lee admires is not how many enemies one man defeated on the battlefield. What truly stayed with him was the fact that when everyone around someone is telling him what he ought to do, he still chooses to stand by his own decision.
It also makes Lee think about himself. He says, “I really think you can’t be afraid of what people say about you. You can’t hear a few comments and then just go along with everyone else. If there’s something you want to do, a goal you want to achieve, then of course you should stick to your own path. I think whether the result turns out to be good or bad, at least you can say you stayed true to yourself.”
From fencing to driving, and then to a film he has remembered since childhood, the things that matter to Lee are actually never very far apart. He knows where he wants to go, and he also knows that he does not want to let the people around him decide his direction too easily.
SUPERNOVA: The Next Touch
Next, Lee has his sights set on the Asian Games in Nagoya. Looking further ahead, where he wants to go is equally clear. It is the Olympics, the highest stage for any athlete. He calls it the “ultimate stage” for a fencer.
But when we take the question further and ask where he hopes Taiwanese fencing might be in the future, he is no longer talking only about himself.
Japan and South Korea are, in Lee’s eyes, currently the leading fencing nations in Asia. He hopes that one day Taiwan will be among them too. Lee says, “I hope that within the next ten years, or even sooner, people will look at us as the strongest in Asia, or even the strongest in the world.”
At nineteen, ten years is still a long way ahead. The Asian Games are in front of him, the Olympics lie further in the distance, and beyond the goals he can already put into words are countless things for which there are no answers yet.
That is precisely what makes documenting Lee at this moment so interesting. We are not looking back at him after everything has already fallen into place, nor do we know where today’s silver medal will ultimately sit within the story of his sporting career. Right now, Lee is at a stage where more people are beginning to know his name, yet there is still a long road ahead.
He knows where he wants to go. The rest can only be answered, one touch at a time.
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