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Chan Kin-wa

The 19th Asian Games are already under way in Hangzhou, with Hong Kong sending its largest ever delegation.
Some 680 athletes will compete for the city across 40 sports, and another 280 officials, staff and medical team members will accompany them, with Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to attend the opening ceremony on Saturday.
Hopes will be high the team can return its biggest medal tally ever, too, with Olympic heroes Siobhan Haughey and Cheung Ka-long to lead the charge in mainland China.
But before the action heats up in Hangzhou, the Post decided to look back at some of the most glorious moments in Hong Kong’s Asian Games history.
Here are five memorable ones:

Hong Kong’s first Games – Manila, 1954
Hong Kong first took part in the Asian Games in Manila in 1954, four years after the inaugural edition in New Delhi, which took place when the then Amateur Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong did not yet exist.
Before 1949, Hong Kong athletes had represented China, and there was an official body based in the city linked to the All China Sports Federation tasked with selecting athletes from the colony for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the 1948 edition in London.
After World War II, several areas in Asia became sovereign states, and a conversation began about a new competition, which eventually became the Asian Games.
How to watch the Asian Games in Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s governing body was recognised by the Asian Games in 1952, in time for it to send 47 athletes to Manila, including sprinter Stephen Xavier, who claimed 200 metres bronze.
While more medals followed, it would be 64 years before the city’s second in track and field, when Vera Lui Lai-yiu won a bronze in the 100m hurdles at the 2018 Jakarta Games.

Hong Kong’s first gold – Seoul, 1986
It took 32 years before the city’s first gold medal, which came at the 1986 Asian Games, and was won by tenpin bowler Catherine Che Kuk-hung.
Cat Che as she was known, claimed the singles title in Seoul eight years after winning bronze in the same event in Bangkok in 1978, when the sport made its debut at the regional Games. Che was a double medallist in Seoul, winning silver in the masters competition, having also won bronze in the trios in Bangkok.
Before Che’s breakthrough, Hong Kong had only won silver or bronze medals in a number of events such as table tennis, shooting, tennis and athletics.

A missed opportunity – doomed 2006 bid
After capturing five golds in Bangkok when the Games returned to Thailand in 1998, the government decided the following year to bid for the right to host the 2006 Games.
Using the catchy slogan “Hong Kong For Sure”, a delegation – headed by then-chief secretary for administration, Anson Chan Fang On-sang – attended the general assembly of the Olympic Council of Asia in Busan in 2000, where a vote to decide the host city for the Games six years later would take place.
Also competing to host were Doha, Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi.
After a secret ballot, Doha won. There was no official record for the number of votes received, but it was believed Doha got 22 out of the total 41, while Hong Kong secured a dismal six, with Kuala Lumpur taking 13. New Delhi were eliminated after the first round ballot.
The hosting cities for the next three Asian Games after Hangzhou have already been decided, with Nagoya set to host in 2026, Doha in 2030, and Riyadh in 2034.
Hong Kong will have to wait at least until 2038 to host the Games, even if our state-of-the-art, 50,000-seat stadium in Kai Tak Sports Park will open next year.

Lee’s fifth gold – Jakarta, 2018
When track cyclist Sarah Lee Wai-sze won the women’s sprint at Jakarta International Velodrome in 2018, it was already her fifth gold of the biggest regional multi-sport Games, including one in the keirin three days before.
After taking her first gold in the 500m time trial in 2010 in Guangzhou, Lee became Asia’s queen of the sprinting events. Four years later in Incheon, she claimed individual medals in both the sprint and keirin, before repeating the feat in Jakarta.
Snooker player Marco Fu Ka-chun has won gold at three Asiads (1998, 2002 in Busan, and 2010) while another cycling legend, Wong Kam-po, also has three golds, in the road race (1998, 2006 and 2010).
Gymnast Shek Wai-hung won golds in Incheon andJakarta but the 31-year-old opted out of Hangzhou to go to the World Championships, as he looks to compete for a 2024 Paris Olympics spot.
Cat Che’s maiden Asian Games gold in 1986 was the first of 38 for Hong Kong before 2023. How many more will be added in Hangzhou?

Rugby’s historic team success – Jakarta, 2018
When Hong Kong’s men’s rugby sevens team beat Japan 14-0 in the final in 2018, it was the first gold medal for the city in a team sport in 17 appearances at the Asian Games since 1954. The men’s team had earned silver medals in Incheon and Guangzhou.
Rugby was introduced to the Games in Bangkok in 1998, when both the 15s and sevens versions of the game were played. But the former was dropped after two editions and sevens, which also became an Olympic sport at the 2016 Rio Games, has become a fixture.
Another team sport, football, has been included at the Asian Games since its first edition, and although Hong Kong has rarely gone close to winning a medal, some of the city’s footballers have still tasted Asiad glory.
Back in 1954 in Manila, Taiwan beat South Korea 5-2 in the football final with a team made up of Hong Kong players as well as coach Lee Wai-tong, who all chose to play for Taiwan instead at major Games.
The Hong Kong football team made their debut at the 1954 Games but with all their top players representing Taiwan, they finished fifth. The Hongkongers successfully defended their title for Taiwan in 1958 in Tokyo, and one of the players, Kwok Kam-hung, had a son – Kenneth Kwok Ka-lok – who became a coach and was boss of the 2018 Hong Kong squad.


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Cat Che Kuk-hung won bowling gold at the 1986 Asian Games. Photo: Reuters

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Sport

Hong Kong

Before the action heats up in Hangzhou, the Post looks back at Hong Kong’s Asian Games history
From the city’s first appearance in Manila in 1954 to its first gold in Seoul 32 years later, here are five memorable moments


From first appearance in Manila to first gold in Seoul, the Post looks back at some memorable moments in Hong Kong’s Asian Games history.
