Hong Kong’s Olympic dreams are being crushed by too much government control of sport

In less than three months, public attention will be drawn to the summer Olympic Games. Apart from the competition between the world’s top athletes, there will be fierce competition between the larger nations to see who can top the medal table.

For historical reasons, Hong Kong has the right to send its own team to the Games, but no one expects it to return with a clutch of medals. Starting in 1952, this year will be the 16th time Hong Kong is competing in the Games. On the previous 15 occasions, only three medals were won: gold in 1996, silver in 2004 and bronze in 2012. On the other 12 occasions, the team returned empty-handed.

Those without an interest in sport will wonder whether it is worth spending public money on sending a team with so little return, but those who do take an interest will feel disappointed and wonder why Hong Kong, with its successes in other fields, cannot do better. Legislators should ask why, with all the money spent on sport, we are consistently absent from Olympic medal tables.

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Before I answer this, I must make the point that no one should disparage the efforts of our sportspeople. Every single athlete we send to the Games has won the right to be there by competing in world and regional championships. They are a credit to Hong Kong and to their coaches, and their qualification for the Games is a testament to their willingness to undergo the most severe training for years.

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There are lessons to be learned from past results. Our 2012 London Olympic bronze medal placed us 79th in the medal table, a silver medal would have placed us 69th and a gold medal would have placed us 50th. If we are to do better, the aim must be to raise our performance standards to the point where we don’t just win the occasional medal (three in 60 years is not enough), but where we win multiple medals at every Olympics. Could this be possible?

We clearly cannot expect to compete against nations with much larger populations. We should, however, expect to compete against those with similar-sized populations and economic resources. Among these, and ranked 29th at the last Olympics, we find Denmark (population 5.6 million) with two gold, four silver and three bronze medals in five different sports. This was Denmark’s best Olympic haul in 64 years. Since Hong Kong started competing in the Olympics, Danish athletes have taken home 90 medals compared with Hong Kong’s three. If Denmark, with a much smaller population, can average six medals at each Games, what is the secret of its success and why can’t we do better?