Winter sports in Hong Kong: from curling to ice hockey to skiing, could you be city’s next Olympian?

Teenager Arabella Ng was Hong Kong’s sole athlete at Pyeongchang, but with Hong Kong offering more winter sports facilities than you might expect for both serious training and leisure, it could be a different story in four years

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A Hong Kong curler competing in the Curling World Mixed Championships 2017 in Switzerland. Photo: Hong Kong Curling Association

Published: 12:15pm, 24 Feb 2018Updated: 2:34pm, 26 Feb 2018

The Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics marks the first time the Winter Olympics has been held in Asia since the 1998 games in Japan. It features 102 events across 15 sports, with almost 3,000 athletes from 92 countries competing for a medal.

For those in Hong Kong with dreams of becoming a Winter Olympian – perhaps even in time for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing – we’ve scoped out the best local places to test your career potential. For those with less lofty ambitions, we’ve also included how many calories you may burn while enjoying these sports.

Five of the best Asian countries for skiing, recommended resorts and our top pick for this winter

Curling

After watching the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, John Li Shek-chong, a former lecturer in recreation and sports management at the University of Hong Kong, set up the Hong Kong Curling Association, which became a full member of the World Curling Federation in 2016.

Li adapted the sport in response to the city’s lack of ice. He bought portable curling “sheets” that could be laid on flat surfaces and developed a new set of rules to create “floor curling”. He offers 12-hour instructor courses for adults, which range from HK$750 to HK$900, and his students, who are qualified instructors, teach classes for HK$30 an hour. In the past two years he has introduced floor curling to 18 countries and regions, with 54 cities in China alone playing the sport.

Li set up men’s, women’s and mixed Hong Kong teams, as well as a junior boys’ team which has beaten England and the Czech Republic. The Hong Kong men’s team have beaten Australia, and the women’s team made it to the semi-finals of the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships in 2017, where they lost to China.

A child tries out floor curling at the Yan Oi Tong 40th anniversary charity carnival and fun day at the Central Harbourfront last year. Photo: Dickson Lee

Association members who live in Canada and the US practise at their local clubs, while those in Hong Kong travel to Japan, Korea and China to practise during the holidays. Although Hong Kong-based members sometimes practise on local rinks, friction from the rough ice slows the curling stones, Li says.