Hong Kong's Golden Win

Cheung admiring his medal on the podium

 

Hong Kong is celebrating its first medal of the Tokyo 2020 Games tonight with fencer Edgar Cheung Ka-long clinching gold in the men's individual foil. It's a massive morale booster not only for the Hong Kong team but for the city as well, with people cheering in sports bars and in shopping malls watching the win.

The 24-year-old beat defending Olympic champion Italian Daniele Garozzo to make the podium finish.

"I beat an Olympic champion to become an Olympic champion! Before the draw was made, I knew I might meet him. I joked then with my coach that if I could beat an Olympic champion, I should call myself an Olympic champion," Cheung said.

Cheung beat Garozzo to win gold in fencing

He has done just that with Hong Kong's second gold medal, 25 years after Lee Lai-shan won gold in windsurfing in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games. Hong Kong has two other medals,  a silver for Li Ching and Ko Lai-chak in the men's table tennis doubles in the 2004 Athens Olympics, and track cyclist Sarah Lee Wai-sze's bronze in the keirin at the 2012 London Games.

Coming into the competition Hong Kong media covering the event said Cheung looked calm and composed, but after it was over he admitted that he was nervous all day and in each competition. His coach, Greg Koenig said that when he first started working with Cheung, he knew he would be an Olympic champion in three years but he did not expect it to happen so fast.  

Lee Lai-shan with Hong Kong's first gold in 1996

Cheung's win will definitely be a boost for fencing in Hong Kong. His advice for younger fencers: "If you work hard and not give up, being an Olympic champion is not just a dream." 

Windsurfing queen Lee is also very pleased with the young fencer, saying: "I said when I won gold in Atlanta that 'Hong Kong athletes are not rubbish', and Edgar has proved that. Not only him but we have so many athletes who work so hard and are top 10 or top 20 in the world and this is something to be proud of."

Along with his gold medal, he will collect HK$5 million cash and surely sponsorships will come knocking at his door.  

For Hong Kong this is an amazing celebration after over two tough years with the anti-government protests and now Covid-19. 

Bronze medallist Lee going for gold in Tokyo

Finally something we can all get behind.

Where's Hong Kong's Olympic Drive?

Big dreams for Joseph Schooling (right) when he met Michael Phelps in 2008

The Summer Games in Rio are over tomorrow, but Hong Kong came home empty handed this year, raising questions of what went wrong, and why Singapore won its first gold medal ever with Joseph Schooling easily beating Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly.

Chef de mission Kenneth Fok Kai-kong tried to spin the negative outcome by saying Hong Kong people should avoid looking at Olympic medals as the be all and end all of sporting achievement, adding it was impossible to put a value on intangible benefits of our athletes at international sporting events.

His father Timothy saw Sarah Lee Wai-sze win bronze four years ago in London, and Lee Lai-shan clinch gold 20 years ago in windsurfing in Atlanta.

Kenneth Fok tries to manage Hong Kong's disappointment

Some bright spots in these Games have been Siobhan Haughey, who was the first Hong Kong female swimmer to qualify for an Olympic semi-final, and golfer Tiffany Chan Tsz-ching who worked hard to stay in the game.

Trying to put a brave face on Hong Kong's performance in Rio won't be enough for the Hong Kong public to wonder if athletes aren't given enough resources in terms of training facilities and coaches. The city's new commissioner for sport Yeung Tak-keung put things into perspective, saying Hong Kong has won three medals since first competing in 1952.

What does that say about the priority of sport in the city, and the tiny talent pool we have here?

It starts from parenting and the school system that encourages playing sports, and building talent from the grassroots level, and encouraging kids to continue playing, running, jumping, dribbling, kicking and so on.

Sarah Lee (left) came home empty handed this year

When parents tell their kids they should study than exercise, it's the wrong message -- sports can help them excel in academics, being more disciplined, more focused and more cooperative in working with others. These skills carry on into their working lives.

But it's going to take a long time for attitudes to change and realize academics and sports go hand in hand.

The more children take up sports, the bigger the talent pool and competition to be the best.

How did Schooling do it? In 2008 he took a picture with Phelps in Beijing, with the hopes that one day he would be just as good as his hero.

That is an Olympic dream come true.

Do Hong Kong athletes have the same drive?

The soul searching begins... again.

The Demise of ATV

ATV's offices in Tai Po in the New Territories

It's finally happened -- ATV or Asia Television is finally shutting down tomorrow.

In the last few years the local TV station has had major financial problems and mainland businessmen have tried to prop it up with injections of a few million dollars here and there.

But this time it wasn't enough and a High Court judge ruled that Deloitte, the provisional liquidator, could go ahead and shut down the company.

ATV's archives include footage from the 1967 riots...

Deloitte is acting on behalf of major creditor Wong Ching, ATV's former boss, who sold his stake to mainland investor Si Bin; Si still owes HK$1.8 billion to Wong, and so he wants the assets sold off to get his money back.

Meanwhile staff weren't being paid their wages, and a few weeks ago some left because they hadn't been paid and can legally quit after not receiving their pay after a period of time.

While the government is assisting the employees in finding new jobs and getting any kind of compensation they can get, there is no word yet on what will happen to ATV's archives.

... the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984...

It was Hong Kong's first TV station and has 60 years' worth of history, including the 1967 riots, the arrest on corruption charges of police chief superintendent Peter Godber, the construction of the MTR and the negotiations of the Sino-British Joint Declaration for Hong Kong's return to China. There's also an exclusive scoop interview with Lee Lai-shan, the windsurfer who won Hong Kong's first-ever gold medal in the 1996 Olympics.

The government doesn't seem to care what happens to these archives which is dismaying to hear, and hopefully someone with the passion and resources can look after them.

They hold Hong Kong's history and we need to keep these things to remember the past as accurately as possible to hold people -- particularly those in office -- accountable.

... and Lee Lai-shan's jubilant Olympic gold win in 1996

While I don't miss ATV per se, it's the archives that I'm most concerned about. They represent 60 years' worth of work that should not be thrown out and forgotten.