A Sporting Chance?

It appears that our government is pretty determined when it comes to hosting and planning large-scale sporting events. Ten years ago, Hong Kong made its first bid to host the 2006 Asian Games. The government at that time was incredibly confident, vowing to host the best-ever Asian Games, but Hong Kong ultimately lost out to Doha. A decade has passed since that bitter failure, and the government is once again trying to garner public support for its second bid to host. It claims that hosting will be a good way to promote an athletic culture and encourage the development of sports in Hong Kong. However, the public, disenchanted with excessive government spending, is widely skeptical of the plan. Not only are citizens concerned about the astronomical amount of money that would be spent on the games, few believe that it would do anything at all to further the city’s goals—especially since the government has done so little for sports over the years.

In the public consultation document assessing the feasibility of hosting the Asian Games, the Home Affairs Bureau outlines three directions for the long-term development of sports in Hong Kong. It claims that the games will “help our elite athletes achieve excellence,” “develop a strong sporting culture in the community” and “raise our profile as a center for international sports events.” It appears that the government has emphasized organizing oversized events and forgotten that popularizing sports among the citizens is the foundation of sports development in the city. “When there is a strong sports culture in Hong Kong, it will then be a suitable time for us to consider making a bid to host the Asian Games,” says Democratic Party legislator Kam Lai-wai. “The government thinks that hosting the Games will give impetus to sports development. But we think that we should only bid to host the Asian Games once we have popularized sports and nurtured elite athletes.”

It is clear as day that Hong Kong does not have a strong sports culture—a fact supported by the government’s own statistics. According to a consultancy study by the Sports Commission in September 2009, it revealed that more than 50 percent of Hongkongers do not meet the baseline indicator of physical activity levels. This means that more than half of us fail to exercise 30 minutes a day, three days a week in moderate or vigorous physical activities.

One of the major problems behind Hong Kong’s failure to foster a healthy sports culture is that the government has failed to come up with clear, objective and tangible goals for its sports policies. “The government talks slogans but it fails to give out measurable indicators in its sports policies. After the government conducts studies, it should set up some targets for us to achieve. For example, the government might aim to raise the sports participatory rate from 30 percent to 60 percent in 10 years,” says Professor Chung Pak-kwong, Head of the Department of Physical Education at Hong Kong Baptist University. Governments in other countries have set up some very concrete targets in terms of popularizing sports. For instance, South Korea aims to raise its sports participation rate from 10 percent in 2007 to 30 percent by next year, while the United Kingdom vows to increase its figure from 30 percent to 70 percent by 2020.

The government has also failed to provide sufficient facilities for the general public. It is a matter of simple logic—if there are not enough venues, how can citizens exercise regularly and develop a love for sports? Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-shing recently stated that the government has been supportive of sports development and it has built nine sports centers, two sports grounds and one water sports center in the past 10 years. While this may sound as though the government has invested extra resources in facilities over the past decade, in fact, this just means that it is keeping in line with baseline planning standards.

According to the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines set by the Planning Department, for every 50,000 to 65,000 people residing in a given area, one sports center should be constructed. Take Sai Kung District as an example. The Planning Department has projected that the population of Sai Kung will reach 426,800 by 2010. That means there should be seven sports centers in the district. However, there are only three, and even though the government is now building one in Tseung Kwan O, it still fails to meet the standard. Don’t forget that Sai Kung is only one of the many districts with insufficient sporting facilities—other districts, mostly new towns such as Yuen Long, Tuen Mun and Northern District, are also facing similar situations. 

Athletic Apathy
This chart demonstates how many sports centers the government ought to build according to the planning standards, versus how many centers they have actually constructed.