Opinion | Tokyo 2020, Kenneth To and Poon Ching-chiu deaths and cancellations dominate Hong Kong sport in 2019

Our writers look back at the year just gone and the one ahead. A tragic year offers lessons for Hong Kong Sports Institute We can’t help but be reminded of the saddest moments of the year with the passing of two elite athletes – swimmer Kenneth To King-him and snooker player Poon Ching-chiu. Record-breaking To died suddenly at the age of 26 during a training camp in the United States in March. He felt unwell in the locker room after a practice session and was taken to hospital where he later died. He had been undergoing a three-month training programme with the famous Gator Swim Club of the University of Florida. To had claimed Hong Kong records in 17 events, short and long course, individual and relay, all in less than three years since returning to the place of his birth in Sydney, where he was raised from the age of two. Teenager Poon only became a full-time scholarship athlete at the Sports Institute in June after representing Hong Kong at the under-18 and under-21 world championships and taking bronze at the 2017 under-16 world championships. Hong Kong protests, Tokyo 2020 rugby failure and John Moore’s Aethero mark 2019 in sport But four months later, the 18-year-old passed out during an afternoon running session inside the Institute as part of his regular training. He was rushed to nearby Prince of Wales Hospital where he was certified dead. The Institute, which said in a statement that it was “deeply shocked and saddened” to learn of the passing of the talented snooker player, must learn lessons from these tragedies. It claimed after Poon’s death that it had implemented annual medical screening for all scholarship athletes designed by its medical consultants’ team. The Sports Institute has never disclosed details of its medical screening programme despite requests from the media. As we look forward to the new year and the approach of the Tokyo Olympics in the summer, athletes will be under greater strain and will endure rigorous training programmes. Results are important but they can’t come at the risk of athletes’ well-being. Hong Kong is preparing some of its best Olympic medal prospects for Tokyo. Track cyclist Sarah Lee Wai-sze, fencer Vivian Kong Man-wai and swimmer Siobhan Haughey are all world class and will be competing with the world’s best for Olympic honours. Elsewhere, we can’t rule out the chances of the men’s foilists in fencing and gymnast Shek Wai-hung in the men’s vault. They also have outside chances of making the podium. Chan Kin-wa Is Hong Kong less attractive to major sporting bodies now? Our sporting calendar was left badly thinned by the protests. It was quietly disheartening to witness some of our blue riband events steadily bowled over as political turmoil spread across the city. Most would no doubt consider it a small price to pay for the advancement of their cause, but Hong Kong could be feeling the effects to its sporting calendar for some time. There’s still no end in sight to the civil unrest, but the friction seems to have smoothed slightly in recent weeks, offering a kernel of hope that February’s Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon and the crown jewel on the city’s social calendar, the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, will go ahead in April. Even so, both can expect to be badly hamstrung by the events of the past six months. We were deprived of seeing a selection of the world’s best female tennis stars at the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open, and some of the top golfers at the storied Hong Kong Open (which, in a lifeline for the Fanling club, was thankfully able to be rescheduled for January 2020, albeit scaled back). The abandoning in October of Hong Kong’s 2020 E-Prix was a fresh blow that the city’s motor racing authorities may struggle to rectify with the FIA, and the 2020-21 edition is still in abeyance. And in mid-December, it was announced that Hong Kong was being overlooked in favour of Shenzhen to host a leg of the illustrious The Ocean Race, the latest black eye to the city’s sport portfolio in a year of them. Formula E and WTA, in particular, took a gamble (to varying degrees) on Hong Kong by making it part of their exclusive calendars, and the city’s strife has burnt fingers and forced late-in-the-day rethinks. Hopefully, their confidence in the city and other body’s willingness to take a gamble on the city are not shaken beyond repair. Paul Ryding After a tense week in, something to cheer for fans at Hong Kong Stadium. Hugely credible World Cup qualifying draw with Bahrain, marred slightly by an apparent racist gesture by Bahrain player at the end of the match #WCQ #HongKongProstests pic.twitter.com/u24ToT3iF7 — Paul Ryding (@pjrydo) November 14, 2019 This was the year that sport became political The year started with such promise. There would be a Fifa World Cup qualifying campaign draw to keep dreams of Hong Kong making it to Qatar 2022 alive for at least the six months leading up to it and there was also the EAFF Football Championship Finals in South Korea at the end of the year for the first appearance since 2011. But the landscape of positivity has shifted dramatically over the past 12 months. It all turned out very different, as the game between Hong Kong and China at the EAFF attested to. Now the focus is not on the football but off it. What will the reaction be to the anthem? How will the players react? What about the fans? We saw it with the NBA and one GM’s comments on the Hong Kong protests and the ongoing fallout of that even taking in fans of European football clubs either side of the border. Mainland media and the Chinese government have been even more outspoken over the course of the year, claiming hurt feelings, conspiracies and “fake news” on everything from Manchester City’s China tour (and Hong Kong visit) to Sun Yang’s doping hearing and Mesut Ozil’s comments on the treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang. Times have changed. Jonathan White