customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

knowledgeQuestion

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Mike Chan

Ira Gorawara

As the remnants of the delegation Hong Kong sent to the Paris Olympics returned home this week, attention began to turn to how to build on the city’s golden success for Los Angeles 2028.
Expectations, already heightened by unprecedented success at the Tokyo Olympics, and boosted by the performance in Paris of gold medallists Vivian Kong Man-wai and Cheung Ka-long, and double bronze medallist Siobhan Haughey, will only increase.
Never before had Hong Kong’s athletes managed to win medals at consecutive Games, breaking a pattern of zero medals at every other edition since Lee Lai-shan won the city’s first in 1996. The performance put the team 37th in the Paris table, their highest finish in any Olympics.
Praise for the 35-strong team has come both from officials in mainland China, and Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who sent his “heartfelt congratulations”.

“Every athlete has given their all and unleashed their full potential. Regardless of the results, all exhibited determination, perseverance and professionalism,” Lee said.
Paris also came on the back of a historic performance at the Asian Games last October, where Hong Kong’s athletes won 53 medals, including eight gold and 16 silver.
But the three medal winners aside, only table tennis duo Doo Hoi-kem and Wong Chun-ting, who lost the bronze medal match of the mixed doubles, and Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet, who reached the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles in badminton, came close to success in France.
For the rest, achievements were limited to making their Olympic debuts, as was the case for the likes of triathlete Jason Ng Tai-long and badminton singles player Lee Cheuk-yiu, who respectively did not finish his race and crashed out tearfully in the early rounds.
Another debutant was cyclist Ceci Lee Sze-wing, who sobbed her way through an interview on Sunday when she admitted “I don’t know what I was doing out there” after a particularly disappointing performance on the track.
Lee Cheuk-yiu, too, confessed to being “up and down emotionally” and said he needed to address weakness and consistency issues.
And once again, Hong Kong required a special invite to send a track athlete, with Felix Diu Chun-hei failing to make it out of his men’s 100 metres heat, while it was left to the 32-year-old Shek Wai-hung to carry the flag in gymnastics.
Of the 10 Olympic medals won across Tokyo and Paris, seven belong to Haughey, Kong – who has decided to “take a break” – and Cheung Ka-long. None appears to have a natural successor within the group that competed in the French capital.
Ahead of Sunday’s closing ceremony, chef de mission Brian Stevenson declined to do any press interviews on what the plan for the next four years looked like, saying he wanted the focus to be “on the athletes”, before heading to the Stade de France to take pictures with flag-bearers Ceci Lee and Lo Wai-fung.
At last year’s Asian Games, Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, a vice-president at the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong China, who was the chef de mission in Hangzhou, also avoided questions about the obvious gaps in the city’s sporting talent.
Chief among those concerned a gymnastics programme that has not produced an elite athlete in a decade, an athletics association with similar achievements, and a swimming association that has relied heavily on Haughey’s talent to see it through.
A review that reportedly took place last December into the Asian Games was not released to the public because Trisha Leahy, the then Hong Kong Sports Institute CEO, claimed it was beyond the average person’s understanding.
And a spokesman for the institute previously said it would not comment on performance in Hangzhou as a whole, but said its scholarship athletes winning 51 of the 53 medals proved “our direction and strategy are on track”.
In the past week, Leahy’s replacement, Tony Choi Yuk-kwan, said he “regretfully” could not answer questions on how his organisation proposed to help athletes be more successful in 2028, saying it was up to individual sport associations to provide answers.
Sports commissioner Sam Wong Tak-sum, meanwhile, has been in the role for more than a year, and has yet to fully discuss his job in any great depth.
On Sunday, when the city’s leader congratulated Hong Kong’s athletes, he also expressed confidence for their future success and highlighted the HK$941.6 million (US$120.7 million) given to the institute for the 2024-25 financial year.

The estimated expenditure on sports development in 2024-25 would be around HK$7.9 billion, which was more than doubled compared with a decade ago, he added.
Choi, when first declining to answer questions in May over the gaps in the development and talent identification of athletes, also pointed the finger at the city’s sports associations, while an HKSI spokesman said its job was to be “the government’s elite sport training systems delivery agent”.
“Athletes’ development pathway typically begins with the feeder system and training programmes provided by respective National Sports Associations,” the spokesman said in an email.
“Under their recommendations, young sports talents may become HKSI Scholarship Athletes. Please contact the National Sports Associations for more information.”
The Post contacted the gymnastics association and athletics association on Tuesday for comment. Gymnastics officials asked for some time to reply, while there was no response from the athletics governing body.
Professor Patrick Lau Wing-chung, of Baptist University’s department of exercise and public health, said improvement was needed in the relationship between sports associations, who were not “doing the same thing at the same pace”, and the HKSI.
“In the past, not all national sports associations have really emphasised the cooperation relationship with HKSI,” he said. “I would say we need to further strengthen and intensify the relationship between the talent identification unit in HKSI and individual sport associations.”
The criteria for sports to receive HKSI funding are largely unchanged since 2005, bar an expansion to three funding tiers in 2013. The government’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau has previously told the Post the system had been reviewed after every Olympics.
At the time, it declined to discuss whether the criteria were still fit for purpose.

Lau said he believed the government should have a five-year plan, that was renewed every five years, so there were “very detailed plans to develop the ladder” and keep the “successful trajectory”.
But he also suggested it was time for Hong Kong to move away from traditional sports, such as track and field.
“If you want to be better, we need to look into those new and young sports like skateboarding and sport climbing,” he said. “We should be smart enough and not do the things that the Westerners dominate.”


Legacy of Paris Games will live on far beyond 2024

Hong Kong Sports Commissioner Sam Wong quits 1 year into job

IOC’s complicated election rules could block Sebastian Coe’s bid to become president

Australia hockey star nets 12-month ban after attempted cocaine purchase at Paris Olympics

Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Paris Olympics: as Hong Kong basks in golden Games, officials silent on how to follow it

Cheung Ka-long unfurls a Hong Kong flag as he celebrates his Olympic gold in Paris. Photo: AFP

Hong Kong fencer Vivian Kong clutches her gold medal at the Games. Photo: DeFodi Images via Getty Images

Ceci Lee (centre, in blue) competes in track cycling’s omnium event in Paris. Photo: SF&OC

Hong Kong Sports Institute bosses have resisted discussing how to plot future success. Photo: Winson Wong

Paris Olympics: tears for Hong Kong cyclist Ceci Lee – ‘I don’t know what I was doing’

Ceci Lee competing in the Olympic omnium. Photo: SF&OC

Ceci Lee delivered a passive performance in Paris. Photo: SF&OC

The Hongkonger hangs back in the bunch. Photo: SF&OC

Paris Olympics: Hong Kong athletes top prize money charts, but British rivals get nothing

Along with the pride that comes with winning a gold medal, fencer Vivian Kong will also earn $HK6m in prize money. Photo: Reuters

Hong Kong’s Cheung Ka-long on the podium after winning the gold medal in the men’s individual foil. Photo: AP

Chinese Taipei weightlifter Kuo Hsing-Chun, who won the 59kg category, will receive about US$716,000. Photo: Reuters

Great Britain’s Alex Yee won the triathlon but will not receive financial rewards from his country. Photo: AP

Paris Olympics: China sprinters ‘too slow, too weak’ says Wu, after 100m hurdles failure

Wu Yanni believes Chinese sprinting is lagging behind the sport’s major powers. Photo: Xinhua.

The 27-year-old Wu insists she was capable of claiming 100m hurdles gold in Paris. Photo: Xinhua

The Chinese men’s relay quartet will compete in Friday’s final after surging to semi-final victory. Photo: AFP

Sport

Hong Kong

Paris Olympics 2024

Medallists’ achievements mask shortage of other contenders and lack of successors, while sporting bodies decline to discuss what comes next


Medallists’ achievements mask shortage of other contenders and lack of successors, while sporting bodies decline to discuss what comes next.


Hong Kong Sports Institute