Opinion | Barton Lui can't blame lack of team doctor for disappointing result

Barton Lui Pan-to, Hong Kong's first male athlete at a Winter Olympics, got more than his deserved share of the limelight after becoming embroiled in controversy following his early exit from the Sochi Games. The short-track skater finished fifth in his heat in the 1,500 metres and then told our man on the spot, Jeremy Walker, he would "treasure this moment" for the rest of his life and "share it with my friends". He added: "They did not really care what my result is, or whether I am going to get a gold medal, because I am here already."

All well and good, that is, until he later moaned on radio that he had been troubled by old injuries and that the absence of a team doctor had left him below his physical peak when he lined up for the qualifier. He was effectively making excuses and implying that if a doctor had been there he might have done better.

As excuses go, this is lame, pinning the blame on the lack of a doctor and as such raising the question of whether the Hong Kong Olympic Committee must be held responsible.

We have heard many excuses before. Some poor, some excellent - remember three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador blaming contaminated beef for a positive doping test, or golfer Rory McIlroy walking off halfway through a tournament and blaming it on a sore tooth. Then what about Richard Gasquet who was in the midst of a 12-month ban from tennis when he told a panel he tested positive for cocaine because he kissed a woman in a nightclub who had taken the drug.

Perhaps Hong Kong athletes should take some lessons in the art of excuses. I remember one, who shall be unnamed, taking part in the Summer Olympics in sailing and faring poorly. He was later quoted as saying "a freak sponge" which became entangled in the rudder had been the reason for his poor performance. Lui's apology was just as abject.

Yet it has struck a chord with many people, whose knee-jerk reaction was if the Hong Kong delegation to Sochi comprised seven people, why wasn't one of them a doctor? Many people believe our Olympic officials are having a jolly and that's hard to fault when you do the math: one athlete and six officials equals a freebie.

But of the six officials, two were there as International Olympic Committee guests - Timothy Fok Tsun-ting, president of the Hong Kong Olympic Committee, and Pang Chung, its secretary-general. Of the other four, we had Ronnie Wong Man-chiu, who was the chef de mission (leader of the delegation), coach Lu Shuo, Hong Kong Skating Union president Yip Siu-yin, and lastly another official from the Hong Kong Olympic Committee who handled all the administrative work and acted as media liaison tasked with taking pictures.