During the more than 150 years of British rule, Hong Kong succeeded in achieving only one Olympic medal, the gold medal won by Lee Lai-shan in windsurfing in 1996, just a year before the handover. Since its return to China, the city has achieved a total of 12 Olympic medals, including three gold medals, three silver medals, and six bronze medals.
This admirable achievement is largely due to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s dedicated promotion of sports and people’s well-being, as well as the determination of the Hong Kong athletes, imbued with unprecedented patriotic fervor.
The excellent performance of Hong Kong athletes at the Paris Olympics, resulting in two gold and two bronze medals, has had a positive impact on the city, giving the people of Hong Kong a greater sense of national pride and helping enhance social cohesion. The HKSAR government should capitalize on this Olympic fever by cultivating a stronger sports culture and encouraging healthier living habits among residents. Building on the success of the Paris Olympics, the HKSAR government should, together with all stakeholders, formulate a comprehensive strategic plan for the upcoming 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. This strategic plan should be announced in the forthcoming Policy Address in October.
First, the government should commit to providing more resources to nurture and maximize our elite athletes’ potential. Although government funding for them has increased to HK$863 million ($110.7 million) in 2023-24, many receiving training at the Hong Kong Sports Institute (HKSI) are struggling with a living allowance of less than HK$10,000, forcing some to take up part-time jobs to support their families. The remuneration should be realistically increased to a level on par with the minimum salary for an average fresh university graduate.
Large commercial enterprises should be encouraged to provide sponsorships for sports. Hang Seng Bank’s commitment to local table tennis development is a typical example of success. The government should try to pair the top 10 businesses in Hong Kong with title sponsorships for the top 10 elite sports in Hong Kong.
To ease the minds of elite athletes, large corporations and universities should provide ample opportunities for retired athletes to pursue further education or career development. The promotion of Tony Choi Yuk-kwan, a former squash player turned coach, to head the prestigious HKSI creates a role model for elite athletes, demonstrating the opportunities to pursue a full-time sports career. The Hong Kong Jockey Club’s (HKJC) employment of Olympic gold medalist Vivian Kong Man-wai is another worthy example of how to treat athletes after their glory days and capitalize on their fame while allowing them to continue their contributions on a different path. It is also a good example of how Hong Kong corporations can positively encourage elite athletes to give their all. This would reassure our best athletes who worry about their future after their competition days.
Special thanks to the HKJC for providing prize money for the medalists and the top eight competitors in the Paris Olympics. Hopefully, this practice will continue and extend to other international and regional competitions, such as the Asian Games.
Second, the elite sports program should be diversified to include “Asian-friendly sports” such as archery, where the two major global powers are Asian countries — South Korea and China — and include new Olympic events such as sport climbing, skateboarding and squash. With the help of top foreign coaches, Hong Kong’s young talents can be groomed to world-class standards in these relatively new Olympic events with an overwhelmingly young following.
Third, Hong Kong should maximize the use of science and technology to enhance athletes’ performances. A good example is the national diving team, which won all the diving gold medals in the Paris Olympics, partly due to its use of an artificial intelligence training system that captures intricate details of diving movements and provides immediate feedback and real-time analysis. Local universities and technology research centers should devote expertise to developing programs to enhance athletes’ training, performances and sports medicine to help competitors return to top-level competitions successfully and promptly after injuries.
The most significant challenge in sports development in Hong Kong lies in the severe lack of facilities. More facilities should be made available for elite sports, such as fencing and swimming in community-level training, which is a steppingstone to identifying elite athletes for training at the HKSI. Hong Kong boasts a 1,200-kilometer-long coastline with a culture for water sports, but we do not have a decent world-class water sports training center for sailing, windsurfing or canoeing.
The 2025 15th National Games and the 2026 Asian Games should be fully utilized as rehearsals for the Los Angeles Olympics, where promising athletes can be tested and selected for in-depth training. The government should follow the current example of obtaining broadcasting rights and enabling all television stations and shopping centers to televise all the competitions involving Hong Kong athletes as encouragement.
Hong Kong should also host more international mega sporting events to enable its athletes to gain more experience for competing on the global stage. These international events, such as the Hong Kong Sevens, which bring together top rugby players and some of the world’s most passionate rugby fans, would also promote tourism and economic growth while elevating Hong Kong’s reputation as an international sports city. With the anticipated opening of the Kai Tak Sports Park, with a 50,000-seat main stadium, a 10,000-seat indoor sports center, a 5,000-seat public sports ground, and about 14 hectares of landscaped open space and other ancillary facilities, careful planning should be made to maximize its use for international competitions to raise the exposure of elite athletes.
Finally, Radio Television Hong Kong should have a dedicated sports channel that broadcasts sporting events involving Hong Kong and Chinese mainland athletes as well as local and school sporting events round-the-clock. The local TV news should also dedicate more airtime to local sports events instead of focusing on the daily foreign coverage of tennis and the NBA!
The author is an honorary HKU Space and Hong Kong Metropolitan University fellow and an honorary adviser to the Squash Association of Hong Kong, China.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
