Hong Kong faces a daunting task to retain team and individual titles when the annual Tour of South China Sea begins in Sha Tin today.
While the Hong Kong team includes Asian Games individual road race champion Wong Kam-po, track points winner Cheung King-wai and defending champ Wu Kin-san, they need to overcome a tough foreign challenge led by UCI Asian tour leader Sergey Kolesnikov of Russia and ex-Olympic track champion Stefan Steinweg of Germany.
'This is going to be very difficult,' said Hong Kong coach Shen Jinkang. 'Not only because we just came back from the Asian Games, but the field is also very strong. The Russians are always a threat to any team as they have been taking part in a lot of Asia tours, while the Australian under-23 contingent is strong in sprinting, which is important in this tour comprising mainly criterium races.'
The coach said Wong has yet to recover from a bout of flu after returning from Doha. 'We have to rely on other riders such as Wu, Chan Chun-hing and Lam Kai-tsun. The trio is working very well after the Asian Games,' said Shen. 'We hope to win several stages and then see how far we can go from there.'
Hong Kong clinched the first and second place individual classification last year through youngster Wu and veteran Wong and were also crowned the team champions.
The 22-year-old Wu, who had a disappointing run in the Doha Asian Games where he only took part in the road race team time trial and finished seventh, said things would not be easy this time.