The Hong Kong Sports Institute hopes to double its number of full-time athletes to more than 350 at the redeveloped elite academy after the government increased its funding by 32 per cent to HK$280 million for this financial year.
The government agreed to plough in an additional HK$68 million to support the existing 15 core sports at the institute as Hong Kong targets medals at international games and raises its sights to include the Olympics.
'The government should be applauded for this commitment to Hong Kong's elite athletes,' HKSI chief executive Trisha Leahy said yesterday. 'They have set in place a stable and long-term funding system for the elite training system.'
The Sports Institute received HK$212 million last year. It now supports 184 full-time athletes - 175 across the 15 elite sports, plus another nine from the 11 sports under the Individual Athlete Support Scheme.
The lion's share of the funding - HK$230 million - will be spent on athletes' related costs and services, including HK$65 million for direct financial support to 754 athletes supported by the HKSI across the board - the 15 elite sports, eight team sports, 10 sports which are non-Asian Games or Olympics, and two sports catering to physical and mentally disabled athletes.
'We do not have sufficient athletes training full-time to really have sustainable world-level results,' Leahy said. 'Fewer than 30 per cent of our elite athletes are training full-time and we need to increase these numbers if we are to be more successful in the international arena.
'Even at the Asian level, if you look at the 2010 Asian Games, all our gold-medal winners and 70 per cent of the total medal count was won by full-time athletes. Just imagine if we were able to increase numbers to 50 per cent of the athletes training full time.'
