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Letters | Ride Hong Kong’s Olympic wave and get more young people into sport
- Readers discuss ways to tackle the general apathy in the city towards sports, the cultural power on display at the Tokyo Olympics, how to get children gaming responsibly, and the importance of individual action to avert climate change
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
With the Tokyo Summer Olympics completed, it is time to reflect on Hong Kong’s outstanding effort in achieving six medals, tripling the city’s total medal count since 1952. Seeing shopping centres come to a standstill to watch the events on large screens was wonderful.
We should now welcome these athletes home with ticker-tape parades and high praise to seize this Olympic momentum and eat into the general apathy towards sports. We should hope that a new generation of Hong Kong children look towards these seven athletes as heroes and that more parents and policymakers connect the dots between the multiple benefits and values of sport and a healthy, balanced society.
The well-documented benefits of sport and other physical activities – such as confidence, resilience, sportsmanship, teamwork, happiness, physical and mental well-being and mates and memories for life – will undoubtedly develop better-rounded humans who are highly likely to apply these values and experiences to other areas of their blossoming lives.
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We need to inspire our children to get sport into their lives and keep it in their lives as a companion to all their other academic and career aspirations and challenges.
Grant Beuzeval, chief operations officer, Valley RFC Sports Club
A lesson on cultural power in Tokyo
What we saw at the Tokyo Olympics closing ceremony was an insight into a cultural heritage established over centuries. It showed us the roots of perseverance.
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