On a February evening in 2002, loudspeakers at the Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City boomed with a call for “Hong Kong, China” for the first time in history. That year marked Hong Kong’s debut at the Winter Olympics, with two short-track speed skaters representing the city. Marching in was an energetic six-member delegation, headed by 17-year-old flag-bearer Cordia Tsoi Po-Yee. Joining her were her teammate 18-year-old Christy Ren, backup member 15-year-old Fiona Fong Ka-man, and their coach Lu Shuo. Now 38, Ren recalled being mesmerised by the lights coming from the audience during the opening ceremony and the surreal awe of making it to the Winter Olympics. “Knowing at that moment you are making history as the first ever representative of Hong Kong and you are actually there, I think that was one [memorable] moment for me,” Ren said. To this day, she still keeps a framed official sweatshirt of the Games decorated with pins from different nations. Hong Kong athletes to perform best ‘athletically, morally’ at Winter Olympics Tsoi, who is now 37, looks back at her days in Salt Lake City with as much pride and excitement as she felt 20 years ago. “Just being in a stadium, where all the athletes are present and representing their countries. Everybody was celebrating humanity, I think that was beautiful,” Tsoi said. Tsoi also represented the city in wushu at the time, while Ren focused on short-track speed skating. From training in an unfamiliar sport to competing on one of the world’s biggest stages, Tsoi and Ren’s journey to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics was the culmination of years of hard work. Both had dreamed of taking part at the Olympics, and both started skating at a young age, initially in figure skating before switching to the short-track discipline. Introduced to the city in 1997 by the Hong Kong Skating Union, the pair spent their teenage years balancing between full-time studies, strenuous training, and competitions. Straddling short-track speed skating, wushu, and squash, a typical day for Tsoi started early as she prepared for morning ice sessions at 7am. An hour or so of off-ice cardio training followed, before her school day began. The evening was devoted to martial arts, squash, homework and extracurricular activities, or more ice training if sessions could be squeezed in. It was freezing while we were sitting there, but I think the excitement of being there was amazing Christy Ren For Ren, short-track speed skating became a regular part of her life at the age of 13. She remembers it being tough juggling training and school, as she had to wake up early in the morning for practice and sacrifice her holidays for training in mainland China. With no Olympic standard skating rinks available in Hong Kong, the city’s athletes had to train on recreational ice rinks, which are much smaller than those used for competition. According to Ren, there was no time set aside specifically for them, so they trained during public sessions or early before it got crowded. The situation improved slightly after Ren’s mother convinced the manager at Cityplaza to give them some private skating time at the venue in Tai Koo Shing. However, limited time slots of two hours once or twice a week meant they had to frequently cross the border to use better facilities, or turn to roller skating as an alternative. Besides adverse training conditions, the pair did not have much external support on their Olympic journey. As the first athletes representing Hong Kong to compete in the Winter Olympics, Tsoi and Ren remembered buying their opening ceremony uniforms with a limited budget. “The jacket we wore at the ceremony was a thin down jacket, but it wasn’t quite thick enough for that type of weather,” Ren said, adding they also had to sew the team Hong Kong patch onto the jacket themselves. “Before the opening ceremony, I remember us being super excited. After walking that circle around the opening ceremony, we sat down on the bench and it was quite cold – it was freezing while we were sitting there, but I think the excitement of being there was amazing,” Ren added. Hong Kong’s Olympic skiers Yung and King ready for Games debut During the Games, both Tsoi and Ren competed in the 500 metres and 1,000m race – with Tsoi’s 22nd place in the 1,000m the best result. A technical blunder meant Tsoi was not registered for the 1,500m despite qualifying at the last minute. Ren went on to place 26th in that race. For Ren, her results at the Games met her expectations, setting a Hong Kong record in the 1,500m. She believes she would have benefited from more consistent training ahead of the Games. “Most of all, it was a dream come true to be able to experience the Olympics and represent Hong Kong for the first time,” Ren said. After retiring, Ren and Tsoi found careers in finance, but the sport still remains a part of their lives. ‘Dying outside’: how Hong Kong’s skiers made it to the Winter Olympics Be present in the moment, these opportunities don’t come every day – even if you’re a world-class athlete Cordia Tsoi With the Beijing Games marking 20 years since Hong Kong’s debut, Ren looks back at her achievement with pride. “For every athlete and for me, it was really a dream to be able to compete in the Olympics,” she said. “When I first started skating at Cityplaza, this dream was really far-fetched. To make it there was quite surreal, and it was really special to be the first one to do it. “Just to imagine that from really zero when I first started, [the sport] not having existed in Hong Kong, to now having a representative at the Winter Olympics almost consecutively since 2002 – I think the sport has come quite a long way.”