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Tokyo 2020: how Hong Kong’s Olympians have been coping, training and goal-setting in time of Covid-19

  • Tokyo-bound Jessica Lee, Michael Cheng, Grace Lau, Thomas Ho and Vivian Kong reflect on athlete life during pandemic
  • ‘I really, really want to do well and bring some good news back home,’ says former world No 1 Kong

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Team Hong Kong at the opening ceremony of the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta in 2018. Photo: Xinhua

As athletes around the world enthusiastically welcome 2021, not all the problems from Covid-19-stricken 2020 will disappear just like that. It has been increasingly difficult to remain optimistic amid the postponements and cancellations of hopes and dreams – but this is what true professionals do best: learn to overcome.

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Hong Kong’s top representative athletes have been through it all: the mental toll of been locked down in a sports institute over winter and being unable to compete; not being able to access favourite equipment and resources for training; or having to inconveniently hop from country to country depending on Covid-19 cases or trajectories.

Having been subjected to months of makeshift arrangements and settling for less ahead of the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics – now moved to next July/August – one thing remains the same. The quest for success.

With Hong Kong on course to send its biggest delegation to an Olympic Games (depending on whether preceding qualifiers go ahead), the city is desperate to celebrate something tangible after a nightmarish couple of years.
A technician sprays disinfectant on different surfaces of the gym at the Hong Kong Sports Institute. Photo: Germagic
A technician sprays disinfectant on different surfaces of the gym at the Hong Kong Sports Institute. Photo: Germagic
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Hong Kong was represented by 42 athletes in London 2012 and 37 in Rio 2016.

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