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Paul McNamara

As a whopping 580-strong Hong Kong squad prepares to go to this month’s Asian Games on the taxpayers’ dime, one of the city’s leading coaches has said that cash is being squandered on athletes who have no right to generous financial backing.
While not pointing the finger in any specific direction, Andrew Wright, the Hong Kong triathlon head coach, said sports bodies in the city “set the bar pretty low … which breeds a non-high performance environment”.
“What also frustrates me is the amount of money people are given that they haven’t earned,” he said. “It’s enabling in a way.”
Underlining that cash does not necessarily buy ambition, a Hong Kong Sports Institute (HKSI) spokeswoman said that in a “highly competitive” sporting world “while medals are a natural aspiration, success is defined more broadly”.
An elite athletes development fund that was established in 2012, using HK$700 million (around US$89.2 million) of taxpayers’ money, funnelled HK$982 million to HKSI for the 2025-26 period, a 4.3 per cent increase on the amount gifted in the previous 12 months.
John Lee Ka-chiu, the Hong Kong chief executive who last week challenged the city’s athletes in Japan to improve on their record 53-medal haul from the 2023 Games, is likely to cover sports development in the city in his annual policy address next week.

“Delivering the best possible performances, demonstrating the results of athletes’ training, and achieving personal breakthroughs in competitions are equally important [to medals],” the HKSI spokeswoman said.
Greg Koenig, the mastermind behind Cheung Ka-long’s two Olympic golds and a key driver of Hong Kong’s fencing revolution, said that on arriving in the city eight years ago he discovered a mindset of “if we perform well in Asia, it’s perfect”. “I said, ‘come on, guys, you have the potential to reach world-class level’.”
Koenig related that when he began fencing in his native France he had to pay to join the national programme. “Only with hard training and great, great results, do you find a way to make money,” he said. “It makes you really strong in your training.
“With money, some athletes might take profits from the system and just control their ranking. I’m happy that with my group of fencers now we don’t have this issue.”
Another coach from a successful national association said that athletes in Hong Kong are “really well helped compared to anywhere else in the world”. “It’s difficult to say if there’s too much help, but individual situations are different,” they added.
The prominent sports of tennis, athletics and gymnastics will all be fighting to retain their precious HKSI backing in Japan. Carrying the racquet sport on his back, Coleman Wong Chak-lam has theoretically been given the unenviable task of sparing it from the chop.
Tiffany Yue Nga-yan delivered the long jump of her life to win Asian Games bronze and preserve athletics’ status back in 2023, but the sport in Hong Kong is on life support after a barren three years. Gymnastics is indebted to the now retired Stone Shek Wai-hung’s 2024 Olympic qualification for their ongoing backing.
Wright oversaw a 2023 Asian Games triathlon mixed-relay bronze, and his athletes delivered two medals from last year’s National Games.
Nonetheless, he said he routinely feels like he is “bashing my head against a brick wall” in his quest to turn the city’s triathlon programme into a world leader.

Frustrated that “not much high-performance thinking goes on in Hong Kong”, Wright said: “We get more money than any [triathlon] training programme in the world, and we should be doing much better than we do. We have amazing facilities. We have all this money, and the population is very talented. The problem is that the system in place [across a number of sports] does not develop athletes.”
Wright said he had not been asked why Hong Kong is failing to rear triathletes who challenge for global honours.
“I don’t think people in Hong Kong see [the ability to compete on the world stage] that way, and it’s almost impossible to change their opinion on it,” he said. “The bar is set pretty low … so that’s what everybody is aiming for and what everyone’s expecting.
“It breeds a non-high performance environment, which just makes it difficult for those who are trying to do it properly.”
The city men’s 4x100m relay quartet in 2012 were the last Hong Kong track and field athletes to qualify for an Olympics by right, while athletics returned empty handed from last year’s National Games. Christy Yiu Kit-ching, in 2016, and Ching Siu-nga four years later, secured Olympic spots in marathon and race walking, respectively.
Still a Tier A sport, athletics has 57 “elite” performers pocketing between HK$35,450 (US$4,500) and HK$41,740 (US$5,300) per month from HKSI. Including juniors, 193 track and field athletes enjoy HKSI support.
Simon Yeung Sai-mo, senior vice-chairman of the Hong Kong, China Association of Athletics Affiliates (HKAAA), said he felt the HKSI funding criteria were “objective enough”.

The latest HKSI grant period will expire on March 31 next year. To retain Tier A backing, a sport must in the previous four years have either qualified an athlete for an Olympics, obtained a World Championships or Asian Games medal, or won National Games gold.
Asked whether more should be demanded from the city’s track and field competitors, Yeung said: “In Asia, we have the likes of China, Japan, South Korea and India. They are very strong even by international standards, so winning an Asian Games or Asian Championships medal is not very easy.”
Nonetheless, looking towards the forthcoming Games, Yeung said there was “always pressure to win a medal”. “It’s best if we win one, if not we must focus on qualifying for the Olympics on our own merit,” he added.
According to the HKSI, tennis is currently serving an “observation period” and will supposedly have its funding axed if it fails to conjure an Asian Games medal. Rules were bent last year to keep the sport behind what one coach called HKSI’s “golden gates”, and in the event that they flop in Nagoya it would be no surprise, given Wong’s climb into the world’s top 100, if the same happened again.
Unless they manage a Games podium finish, athletics and gymnastics would enter a similar two-year internal review period, which essentially amounts to a second chance after four years of underperformance, from January 1 next year. They would have until April 1, 2029, halfway through the next four-year grant cycle, to save their skins.
Hong Kong gymnastics has mustered only two Asian Games medals, vault golds for Shek in 2014 and 2018. A HKSI source said that gymnastics, a Tier A sport with 13 “elite” athletes on full-time HKSI retainers, and another 15 juniors receiving support, “needs good results”.
Regarding Wright’s accusation that too little is expected of the city’s athletes, and too many are given too much too soon, Albert Ng Tsz-kin, executive director of the Gymnastics Association of Hong Kong, China, said he had “no comment”.
Shek, now coaching the Hong Kong women’s team, did not reply to a request for comment.
Wright certainly did not have rugby in his crosshairs when he took aim at the city’s sporting culture. Hong Kong’s men’s sevens team claimed Asian Games gold in 2018 and 2023, while the women scooped bronze three years ago.
Nonetheless, why the seven-a-side sport needs 72 athletes contracted to HKSI, and 28 more on junior grants, is a legitimate question.

Paul John, the head of Hong Kong sevens rugby, had “nothing to say” about those numbers.
Hong Kong marathon runner Chong See-yeung used the chicken and egg idiom to address the question of whether athletes were handed too much on a plate.
“For some athletes, if they don’t have that kind of support, how can they achieve great results?” he said. “They can’t achieve great results the moment they receive support.”
Wright acknowledged that athletes of the “right calibre” would thrive at HKSI. “The issue is finding the right level of athlete,” he said. “Somewhere in Hong Kong, there is a potential Olympic champion triathlete.”
Koenig, whose leading foilists, Cheung, Ryan Choi Chun-yin, Harris Ho-shing-him and Leung Chin-yu are expected to vie for Games honours this month, said his athletes were “a little bit surprised” back when he spelled out their global potential.
“After a few good results, they understood they could do it,” he said. “Once your A team can do it, your B team fights hard to reach their level.
“Harris Ho is 17 and when he was 11 he watched Cheung Ka-long win Olympic gold on his television. He thought, ‘I’m from Hong Kong, I can do it, too’.
“When you have this mindset, you work harder and don’t limit yourself to Asian competitions. HKSI helps athletes in the best way in the world, there are lots of good coaches and no reason to not succeed.”
The HKSI spokeswoman added that “athletes are fully backed to train and pursue excellence on the international stage, ensuring they have the environment needed to achieve breakthroughs and success”.
Wright said he planned to stick around to keep trying to instigate change from within.
“We make it so difficult for ourselves and it’s hard to be around that sometimes,” he said.
“Some days it really feels like you’re just at a massive loss, and there’s no way that we can improve or get the job done. Other days, like when I see my six Asian Games athletes thriving and improving, give you a glimmer of hope that we can do it.
“There are definitely athletes doing a very professional job. Dealing with Hong Kong athletes is unique, and I don’t think there’s anybody else in the world more suited to the position that I’m in.”
Additional reporting: Mike Chan


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Sport

Hong Kong

Triathlon coach Andrew Wright laments lack of ‘high-performance thinking’, as city sports institute asks to be judged on more than medals


Triathlon coach Andrew Wright laments lack of ‘high-performance thinking’, as city sports institute asks to be judged on more than medals.


Hong Kong sport ‘setting bar low’, enabling mediocrity with cash handouts, coach says

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Triathlon coach Andrew Wright laments lack of ‘high-performance thinking’, as city sports institute asks to be judged on more than medals

Triathlon coach Andrew Wright laments lack of ‘high-performance thinking’, as city sports institute asks to be judged on more than medals