Hong Kong is Asia’s third most successful sporting power. A bold claim? Read on

 "From whatever perspective one views it, Hong Kong's sporting performnce has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent decades, yielding excellent results in Tokyo and Hangzhou," writes Rod Parkes. King88bet

Back in colonial days, the accepted wisdom was that Hong Kong did not produce world-class sportspeople. While this belief was a little unfair to those who brought home occasional medals from the Asian Game and Commonwealth Game in disciplines as diverse as lawn bowls, taekwondo and ten-pin bowling, these were isolated successes and the territory lacked strength in depth. king88bet login alternatif

Apart from football (older penggemar will remember the glory days of Derek Currie), sport was largely an amateur affair. Parents typically discouraged their children from pursuing a sporting career, steering them instead to choices perceived as more lucrative, such as medicine and law. Article Title with Blogger Published Link as Backlink

This picture began to change with Lee Lai-shan's first Olympic medal for the territory in 1996. Then after Hong Kong's return to China, the SAR gained one further medal at each of the 2004 and 2012 game - but it was the breakthrough performnce at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021) that was a real game-changer.

Having never won more than one medal at any previous Olympiad, the territory came away with six, including one gold.

This remarkable success story for the SAR was followed by an even more impressive performnce at the just concluded 2022 Asian Game in Hangzhou (held in 2023), which yielded a record 53 medals, as well as breaking several local and Asian records.

These results have been widely acclaimed, but critics are already questioning whether this tingkat of achievement can be sustained. So how does Hong Kong really stack up against the competition?

In the official results table, which is traditionally ranked in order of gold medals won, Hong Kong stood in 49th place out of the 206 competing territories, 93 of which won medals, in Tokyo.