Victoria Lee: 5 things about the late MMA fighter

SINGAPORE: News on Sunday (Jan 8) of the death of mixed martial arts fighter Victoria Lee shocked the world of combat sports and beyond, with fans and fellow athletes mourning the loss of a rising star.

Victoria Lee died on Dec 26 last year, her sister Angela Lee said in an Instagram post after the 18-year-old's obituary was published by the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park in Kaneohe, Hawaii.

"She has gone too soon and our family has been completely devastated since then," Angela Lee said in her post.

"We miss her. More than anything in this world. Our family will never be the same. Life will never be the same."

Here is a look back at the life and career of the fighter nicknamed "The Prodigy".

Victoria Sun-hei Lee was born in Wahiawa, Hawaii, on May 17, 2004, to a Singaporean Chinese father and a South Korean-born Canadian mother.

Her father, Ken Lee, and her mother, Jewelz Lee are lifelong martial artists who ran their own gyms, according to a 2020 story by ONE Championship.

The Lees opened their first gym in Canada in 1996, the year that Angela Lee was born. The family then relocated to Hawaii in 2003, where Ken Lee switched his focus to his real estate company.

Martial arts was never far away for the family.

"Family is everything to us. My wife and I, fortunately, are on the same page. We put our family above everything else, and it has helped in the martial arts because my wife and I have been lifelong martial artists," Ken Lee said in a 2017 interview with ONE.

"It just became a way of life. We do it together, it is how we spend time together, and it was very important for us to educate our kids with martial arts as well.

"So, from a very young age, maybe three or four years old, every one of my children trained in martial