While Hong Kong SAR may not be a traditional Olympic powerhouse, medal-winning performances at the Paris Olympics have spurred a sense of pride across the city, raised the profile of sport as a career choice and provided a boost to the economy.
With gold medals won by foil fencer Edgar Cheung and épée fencer Vivian Kong, as well as two bronzes for swimming from Siobhan Haughey, Hong Kong athletes came away from the Paris Olympic Games placed 37th in the medals table, the SAR’s highest ever ranking.
In addition to the opportunity to perform on the global stage, for Hong Kong athletes that stood on the winners’ podium in Paris, success and recognition were not the only rewards. Unlike nations such as Great Britain, Sweden and Norway, where qualifying for the Olympics is reward in itself, Hong Kong’s medal-winning Olympians receive cash prizes, with Hong Kong offering among the highest cash awards.
Fencers Cheung and Kong are set to receive HK$6m (US$769,400) each from the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Athlete Incentive Awards Scheme. The scheme will also award swimmer Haughey HK$3m for securing bronze medals in the 100m and 200m women’s freestyle event.
Expenditure on sports development across Hong Kong in 2024-25 is expected to be about HK$7.9bn
Meanwhile, athletes who earned fourth to eighth places in various sports categories will also receive cash prizes between HK$1.5m and HK$375,000. In addition, the Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation, which is linked to the founder of one of Hong Kong’s prominent property development companies, will award HK$100,000 to each member of Team Hong Kong, including athletes, coaches, medical personnel and managers.
Benefits of sport
Hong Kong’s 36-strong delegation of Olympian athletes has also received enthusiastic praise from government officials, who have also been quick to highlight the HK$941.6m (US$120.7m) in funding the government has allocated to the Hong Kong Institute of Sport – where many of the city’s elite and up-and-coming sportspersons train – for the 2024-25 financial year. The estimated expenditure on sports development across Hong Kong in 2024-25 is expected to be about HK$7.9bn, which is more than double compared with a decade ago.
To ensure Hong Kong citizens could watch the Olympics, the Hong Kong government purchased the broadcast rights of the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, so they could be shown on free-to-air TV. Despite the seven-hour time difference, with live-streaming events and other Olympics tie-in promotions taking place in various shopping centres across Hong Kong, footfall at some locations was reported to have increased by 20% from previous weeks.
Success at the Olympics helps to raise awareness of the benefits participation in sports can deliver
Success at the Paris Olympics also helps to raise awareness of the physical, psychological and social health benefits participation in sports can deliver, especially for children and young people. In Hong Kong, which values academic performance, physical education is often over-shadowed by students spending three to four hours on academic assignments, leaving them little time to build up an interest in sports.
Medal-winning performances by Kong and Haughey could go some way to change the attitude of Hong Kong parents, many of whom believe that sport and academic studies don’t mix. For example, while Kong maintained a demanding training schedule, she also obtained a degree in international relations at Stanford University in the US. Haughey also maintained an arduous swimming schedule while she studied psychology at the University of Michigan in the US.
Sensing that the attitude to sport in Hong Kong could be changing for the better, in the wake of Olympic success, Hong Kong’s chief executive has announced the government would expedite a study into the construction of a fencing stadium and a swimming pool that could be used to host international competitions and inspire future aspiring athletes.
