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Paul McNamara

Wynna Wong

Stephy Zhang

Wheels were turning in more ways than one at a packed Hong Kong Velodrome last month when cyclist Ceci Lee Sze-wing rode to her third gold medal of the 15th National Games.
Roared on by home spectators, it symbolised the successful realisation of the decision for the city to co-host the Games alongside Guangdong and Macau, its partners under the Greater Bay Area development plan.
It created a scene officials hope to see replicated on an even bigger scale: historic achievements in front of passionate sold-out crowds at world-class venues, projecting the bay area’s capabilities and advantages to the world.
The multi-sport Games required cross-border cooperation on infrastructure, logistics, security, manpower and commerce, and may prove to be a precursor. A working group of business leaders and sports officials has been building support behind the scenes for the region to host an Olympics, Asian Games or other major sporting event.

Bach to the future
Thomas Bach, the honorary life president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), visited Hong Kong during the National Games and when asked about a potential bid, told the region to “go for it”, adding he believed it had “all the ingredients” to stage a global version and it “could be a very important candidate” for future Olympics.
“If you look at the scope of the National Games, they are bigger than the Olympic Games,” Bach said.
“You have many world-class sports facilities, you have a sports-loving public, you have all the ingredients it needs, so one day I think it would be very good to be a candidate for the Olympic Games.”
Bach had nothing to lose in making those remarks, and said something similar in South Africa during a visit in the closing days of his presidency in October last year.
“Africa is on the rise and South Africa has the stability, the infrastructure and vision to stage an Olympics,” he told a media briefing in Johannesburg.
“I’m here to highlight the ever-growing importance of a young continent like Africa in the Olympic movement and to support this development.”
Less than a month after Bach made his comments at Kai Tak Stadium, South Africa announced its intention to bid for the 2036 Games, adding itself to a list of as many as 10 potential candidates, including India, Turkey, Qatar and Chile.
However, Kirsty Coventry, Bach’s successor as IOC president, had paused bidding in June to allow for a review of the selection process.
Still, Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, vice-president of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China (SF&OC), called Bach’s comments “important encouragements”.
The National Games, Fok said, “laid an important foundation for future bids to host international events”.
“Bidding for the Olympics is an exciting vision, but it also involves certain complexities,” he added. “We hope to learn from the 15th National Games … and accumulate richer experience for the Greater Bay Area’s Olympic bid.”
Accumulating “richer experience”, as Fok put it, would seemingly need the region to host other multi-sport, multi-day events first. But opportunities for doing so appear few and far between.
The next available Asian Games are in 2038 and 2042, with Japan hosting in 2026, followed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane four years later leave 2036 and 2040 as the open slots for the Olympics, with the one in 11 years’ time the focus of a potential Hong Kong bid from the 2036 Working Group.

Cost of doing business
A coalition of officials from across business, sport and government, the group has released a detailed document arguing the region could host the Olympics with a “cost-neutral” model.
Among its arguments was the infrastructure already in place, which would eliminate the most common source of cost overruns, while ambitiously predicting a multibillion-dollar revenue stream that could offset operational expenses and protect taxpayers.
As a starting point, the group cited the substantial contribution from the IOC for Brisbane 2032, which is estimated at around US$1.8 billion, more than nine times the Hong Kong government’s HK$1.48 billion budget for the 2025-26 financial year.
Paris, though, provides a dose of reality, with the final public cost of its 2024 Summer Games and Paralympics hitting €6.6 billion (US$7.7 billion), of which €3.63 billion went to infrastructure projects. Separate from that overall total was the €4.4 billion in private financing that funded the local organising committee.
According to the group, offsetting any outlay would be the broadcasting rights, which are forecast to be some US$900 million (HK$7.04 billion) in 2032. The expectation, the group argues, is that China’s massive domestic market would see that figure dwarfed by comparison.
Other revenue streams would be ticket sales, which in Paris brought in €1.333 billion, and sponsorship from major global brands, which has already reached US$1.6 billion for LA 2028, with organisers targeting US$2.5 billion.
However, economist Simon Lee Siu-po sounded a note of caution, suggesting the timing of such an undertaking was far from ideal, given Hong Kong’s economic situation.
Lee pointed to an overwhelming number of international studies that concluded the economic benefits of hosting the Games were often “questionable”, causing a “winner’s curse”, under which a host city ultimately overpays and sees an abnormal or negative return on investment.
“The Hang Seng Index, property index, retail sales, catering sales, tourist numbers, tourist spending … Hong Kong has yet to return to the pre-Covid level,” he said, adding there were also fiscal constraints.
“Hong Kong is facing a serious deficit now, and needs to raise debt. Now is not the appropriate time to apply for the Olympic Games.”
Momentum is building, however. Timothy Fok Tsun-ting, the SF&OC’s president, has predicted Hong Kong hosting the general assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees next December will “provide an opportunity to show what is happening in Hong Kong sport”.
“They hear about it, but it’s very different to see it. There are many ways to expose Hong Kong as a wonderful place for sports exchanges … and it could be the beginning of us getting more international events.”

If you build it
As the working group has pointed out, much of the infrastructure needed to host a major Games already exists across the region, not just when it comes to venues, such as Kai Tak Stadium, but transport between all the major hubs too.
And there was a more optimistic perspective on the “winner’s curse” from Terence Chong Tai-leung, executive director of the Lau Chor Tak Institute of Global Economics and Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
He said it primarily affected places “without well-built infrastructure”, forcing them to spend heavily on new stadiums and transport networks. Hong Kong as a highly developed city largely bypassed this requirement.
“We already have stadiums,” he said. “We already have a very well developed infrastructure including high-speed trains, railways and so on … the investment will not be that high.”
Chong believed the most substantial return would be intangible: revitalisation of the city’s global reputation.
“Everybody would be watching Hong Kong, so they will think Hong Kong is still a city that can attract tourists,” he said. “I think the major benefit is to build up our international image again.”
Timothy Fok has said previously that a successful cross-border National Games could inch the region closer to the “ultimate prize” of welcoming an Olympics, something “everybody is chasing”.
But he acknowledged that Hong Kong needed more facilities, including for top-class swimming and tennis, although he played down the amount of building required.
“Governing bodies don’t want you to build expensive facilities for one-off Games,” he told the Post in September. “The most important thing is creating a legacy – not having two weeks of competition, then no plan.”
He also said: “The government is seeing the success of our athletes and becoming more generous, flexible and cooperative. We’re having more major events and putting Hong Kong on the map, and we can do more.”

Cross-border challenges
That is not to say there aren’t challenges associated with the Greater Bay Area hosting an Olympics or Asian Games, even if China has already done so multiple times.
The major difference is that while Beijing’s 2008 and 2022 Olympics and the Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023 were all held wholly in mainland China, a bay area version would require the movement of athletes, officials, goods and potentially hundreds of thousands of spectators between Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and elsewhere.
While freedom of movement has eased over the years, it is still far from smooth, or certain, depending on when citizens of some countries arrive at the crossing points.
But Patrick Lau Wing-chung, professor in the department of exercise and public health at Baptist University, said the region’s advantages outweighed challenges around cross-border transport and differing legal and regulatory regimes.
“According to the report from the National Games, 90 per cent of existing venues can be directly used for international competitions,” he said. “This will greatly reduce the cost of rebuilding.”
He suggested the biggest challenge would be posed by the influx of people, saying that over the Olympics’ 16 days, Paris received 7 million visitors, with up to 730,000 people watching events on the same day.
“There were 207 countries and regions. That is much more complex than the National Games,” Lau said. “The cross-border procedures are not simple.”
Those visitors may need to cross the border to watch different events.
“The number may reach up to 400,000 people crossing in one day. Can Hong Kong handle it?” he asked. “At most, Hong Kong can handle about 300,000 people a day now, and that’s mostly mainland Chinese. If large numbers of foreigners come, the pressure will be very, very high.”
Party of four
Chinese officials seemed to lay the groundwork for an Olympic bid on November 24, when the government announced that Hong Kong, Guangdong, Macau and the General Administration of Sport of China had agreed a partnership aimed at strengthening sports cooperation and promoting integrated development.
Known as the “Four-Party Agreement”, it pledged to consolidate the success of the National Games, and its provisions included further joint hosting of sports events.
The agreement made official work that had already been taking place before and during the Games, which featured a cross-border marathon and the implementation of a “seamless customs clearance”, which officials said created a “zero delay, zero contact, zero wait” zone.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu believed it signified “a new stage of cooperation among the three places”.
“Under the strategic framework of the Four-Party Agreement, the HKSAR Government will capitalise on the distinctive advantages of ‘one country, two systems’ to promote the integrated development of sports in the Greater Bay Area,” he added.
“We will deepen the cooperation in areas such as consolidation of sports resources, joint hosting of sports events, integration of sports industries and nurturing of talents, thereby contributing to the building of China as a leading sporting nation.”


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The cooperation showcased by the co-hosted National Games has further fuelled calls to launch a bid to welcome the world


The cooperation showcased by the co-hosted National Games has further fuelled calls to launch a bid to welcome the world.


Greater Bay Area

Olympics

Ceci Lee Sze-wing

Terence Chong Tai-leung

Greater ambition: how Hong Kong and bay area neighbours could host Asian Games, Olympics

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The cooperation showcased by the co-hosted National Games has further fuelled calls to launch a bid to welcome the world

The cooperation showcased by the co-hosted National Games has further fuelled calls to launch a bid to welcome the world