EURO
We think we know the story. Jackson goes to Korea, becomes a trainee, GOT7,
solo career, TEAM WANG, Louis Vuitton, and boom, one day he sets foot in
Europe for the first time between two Fashion Weeks. Except no. Not even
close. Jackson already knew our roads, our slightly depressing hotels and our
badly heated gyms long before he knew he'd become a singer. Because before all
of that, there was a blade, a mask, and a sports career that could have taken
him straight to the Olympics.
The fact everyone forgets
Jackson didn't just "dabble" in fencing like some Wednesday afternoon hobby. He represented Hong Kong. In sabre. At international level. His family, by the way, doesn't do things halfway: his father, Wang Ruiji, was on the Chinese national fencing team and won gold at the Asian Games; his mother, Zhou Ping, was a gymnast. Safe to say that at the Wang dinner table, elite sport wasn't a topic of conversation, it was just life.
Jackson started sabre around age ten. In 2010, at just 16, he represented Hong Kong at the very first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore — 11th in individual, 8th in mixed team. The following year, he won the sabre title at the Asian Junior and Cadet Championships. Still considered, to this day, the peak of his athletic career. And the International Fencing Federation itself counted him among Hong Kong's great hopes.
So no. This wasn't a hobby. This was a trajectory.
Budapest, Europe before Europe
Here's where it gets interesting for us, self-appointed European fanbase: Jackson actually lived in Europe. Really lived there, not just passed through between two flights.
In December 2023, a fan asked him on X if he'd ever go back to Budapest. His answer: he'd love to, he used to live there for a bit, "back in fencing time." Then in July 2025, in WIRED's Autocomplete interview, he gave more detail: he was 14 or 15, based in Budapest for fencing. A teenager juggling training, international competitions, and flights back to Hong Kong so he wouldn't miss his exams. Not exactly the average high schooler.
And Budapest was only one stop. In that same WIRED interview, he mentions a second stretch, this time in Sicily, seven to eight months before heading back to Hong Kong for exams. (Copenhagen and Ireland also come up in a few biographies, but without a primary source giving dates and context, we're not stating them as fact here — at EuroJackys, we check before we write, always.)
So yes: long before he came to Europe as an international superstar, he'd already been here. With a mask, a blade, and a completely different dream in mind.
London 2012, the road not taken
In 2010, when JYP Entertainment scouted him, Jackson was on a clear upward sports trajectory. The logical next step? The 2012 London Olympics. Not qualified yet, but unmistakably on that path.
He walked away from all of it. After winning the Asian junior title in 2011, he left Hong Kong to become a trainee in South Korea — no guarantees, an industry he didn't know, giving up a sport he was already excelling in. The kind of bet you only get to call brave once it's paid off.
Fencing never really left
What's genuinely nice about this story is that it doesn't end in 2011. Jackson often talks about fencing as a life school — discipline, pressure, getting back up after a loss. Reflexes you can clearly see in how he works today, whether that's music or TEAM WANG.
And in July 2026, the loop officially closed: Jackson was named the International Fencing Federation's first-ever global ambassador, tasked with introducing the sport to new audiences on the road to Los Angeles 2028.
Before the music. Before GOT7. Before TEAM WANG. There was the sabre. And we, European fans, get to say something few fandoms can: the continent we represent was part of his story long before we ever existed.