Ireland’s sporting tradition is lesson for Hong Kong, says boss of city’s athletes as he warns: you can’t buy Olympic success

Hong Kong cannot simply buy athletic success and should promote the kind of sporting culture found in places such as Ireland in the hope of punching above its weight globally.

That view formed part of the vision outlined this week by the new Hong Kong Sports Institute (HKSI) chief executive Tony Choi Yuk-kwan as the city builds towards this year’s Paris Olympics.

He insisted oversight of taxpayer-funded athletes was robust, and cautioned that the institute’s task was not as straightforward as turning money into gold.

Choi defended the government’s system for assessing each sport’s funding need, with the public sums committed growing by the year as more athletes make the grade and some sports receiving stays of execution despite missing targets, albeit with the pandemic in mitigation.

“If they don’t get the medals at major Games, or qualification … they’ll be out,” Choi said. “[Whether you think it is] too nice or too hard is another issue. The policy can be refined, discussed, but I have to say, the consequence is there. If they don’t meet the benchmark, they will take the consequences. It has happened before.”

One problem with Hong Kong’s outsized haul at the Tokyo Olympics was how to follow it in Paris. Cheung Ka-long’s gold in fencing and Siobhan Haughey’s brace of swimming silvers were the pick of the city’s unprecedented half-dozen medals.