National Games win ‘one of my biggest targets’ says golfer Kho, as 1-year countdown begins
Hong Kong will co-host country’s biggest multi-sport event alongside Guangzhou and Macau
Dancers, athletes and officials kick-started the one-year countdown to the 15th National Games in Hong Kong on Saturday, with a ceremony that was forced to move indoors by the approaching Super Typhoon Yinxing.
The city will host eight sports when the country’s biggest multi-event competition takes place next November, co-hosting alongside Macau and Guangzhou.
Originally planning to celebrate the occasion on the waterfront alongside Victoria Harbour, which is expected to play host to the triathlon, the event was moved to Tamar.
That did not stop 19 members of the Hong Kong Dance Company performing a specially choreographed routine featuring elements of the sports being held in the city.
Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu said using Kai Tak Sports Park as one of the main venues could “inject strong impetus into the development of Hong Kong’s sports, leisure and entertainment and tourism industries, as well as the event economy” and hoped residents were “looking forward to it as much as I am”.
The city’s experience in hosting large-scale sporting events would come to the fore, the chief executive said, adding the state-of-the-art HK$30 billion venue in East Kowloon would have an important role to play.
