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SCMP Reporter

AS the world's attention focused on Lillehammer, Norway, to watch the unfolding Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan saga, Hong Kong's amateur ice skating enthusiasts were striving to perfect the skills that could put them under the international spotlight.

  Skating has been a popular teenage sport in Hong Kong since the opening of the first ice rink in the Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park in the early 70s. But while Asians have the perfect build for the sport, they are rarely seen in international ice-skating competitions.

  However, if the territory's budding champions have their way, that is about to change.

   Ted Wilson, manager and head coach of Cityplaza's Ice Palace, claims two million people skate in Hong Kong - that estimate is based on the use of all ice rinks in the territory. During Chinese New Year, 1,500 people went skating at Cityplaza each day.

  ''In Hong Kong, there are very good skaters who have been carefully developed over the past seven years,'' he says.

   ''Ice skating is such a natural sport for the Chinese people because of their physique and grace,'' Mr Wilson says.

  Although the Lai Chi Kok rink was demolished last year, five more ice skating rinks have sprung up in Hong Kong during the past 10 years.

  And with China's world number three seed, Lu Chen, participating in the Winter Olympics in Norway and the planned opening of an Olympic-sized ice rink in a new shopping complex in Yau Yat Tsuen in December 1996, skating enthusiasm will be greater than ever among young people.

  Mr Wilson, director of the international district of the Ice Skating Institute of America (ISIA), a governing board of recreational skating representing all the ice rinks in Asia, except China, has been promoting the sport since he arrived in Hong Kong in 1987.

 ''Skating is going to be a very important sport - for amateurs and professionals,'' says Mr Wilson, 51, who won two world professional championships, in 1968 and 1972.

  He says skating is not only a popular recreational activity, but a beautiful sport embodying artistry and glamour.

  One of his success stories is 28-year-old Sunny Man Shung-lai, who in 1989 became the first skater outside the US to pass the ISIA's Freestyle 10 testing standard.

    He came fourth in the 1993 US Open Professional Skating Championship and is now coaching 200 skaters, aged between two and 50, at Cityplaza.

  ''I've been skating for 11 years. I stopped going to school at Form Four. My aim then was to compete overseas and to pass the Freestyle 10. Ted helped me to reach my goals,'' Mr Man said.

  ''Before I passed the Freestyle 10, I was practising 10 hours every day. It was exhausting to me so I switched to coaching,'' Mr Man says.

  ''You have to fall many times to learn how to do a jump,'' Mr Wilson says.

  Mr Man enjoys teaching young children: ''It's very satisfying seeing them do well and I hope they will eventually do better than me,'' he says.

  During school holidays, the skaters come to the rink every day at 7am and stay until 10am. During term-time they skate on Friday and Saturday nights from 10pm till midnight, and also on Sunday mornings.

  During the past four years, Olympic coaches have spent two weeks, in March and September, training skaters at Cityplaza.

  One of Mr Man's most promising skaters is 12-year-old Nicholas Chan Pak-ling, who started skating when he was six. Mr Wilson says that Nicholas, at 11, became the youngest skater to pass the Freestyle Nine test.

  Nicholas says skating does not interfere with his school work. His academic performance is above average. He only skates after he finishes his homework.

  He is aggressive in his training and needs little motivation to work while on the ice. He hopes to take Freestyle 10 in 1994. Both he and and another brilliant skater, Rita Au Yeung, 13, hope to represent Hong Kong in the 1994 World Junior Championships in Budapest, Hungary, next winter.

  Nicholas and Rita have won gold medals in competitions in Dubai, Australia, Japan and America.

  Another outstanding skater is 17-year-old Chan Yan Ho. He began skating when he was four. Because both his aunt and mother work at the rink in Cityplaza, he has been skating most of his life.

  He became a serious skater in 1987 and worked his way up to the Freestyle Nine level.

  While he does not look on the ISIA Freestyle 10 test as a possibility because of a lack of training time, he does hope to compete in the world's leading professional competition, the US Open, by summer, and in the World Junior Championships.

  In the past five years, he has participated in 10 championships and won 23 gold medals.

  ''You have to practise all the time to keep up so as not to let anybody get ahead of you,'' he said.

  He practises every Friday and Saturday night, so skating won't interfere with his homework. In the past six months, he has been practising his jumps and has mastered the double axle. He is aiming to master three types of triple jumps. And there is three-year-old Au Ho-leung, who skates as well as he walks.

  ''My mother asked me to learn and I like it very much. Later I'll compete,'' the little boy said determinedly.

   ''Before I passed the Freestyle10, I was practising 10 hours every day. It was exhausting to me so I switched to coaching,'' Mr Man says.

  ''You have to fall many times to learn how to do a jump,'' Mr Wilson says.



Wizards on ice rush for gold