Hong Kong head coach Chris Perry said he would only send one crew to next month's All China Games in Guangdong as he wanted to keep his team under wraps ahead of next year's Asian Games.
Perry said their target this year was last month's Asian Championships in Xian while the All China Games would serve as preparation for the 2002 Pusan Asian Games. They decided to send their Asian Championship silver-winning men's quadruple sculls because the South Koreans decided not to include this event in the Pusan Asian Games.
Perry said: 'We don't want to disclose our form in events that we might do well in at the Asian Games. Also, there will be very few lightweight events there. Our quadruple sculls will have to race in the heavyweight events.' But he hopes his crew can qualify for the final. 'This crew is of the same calibre as [retired stars] Fenella Ng Gar-loc and Ho Kim-fai. It's one of the those boats where the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts. The standard [in Guangdong] should be extremely high. We will be heavily beaten by the heavyweight mainlanders at the starts. But technically we are good. It's a question of whether we can hang on in the early part of the race.'
