Utah 2002: schoolgirl joins Hong Kong’s first Winter Olympics team
- Speedskater Fiona Fong joined Hong Kong’s tiny Winter Games squad heading to Salt Lake City at the last minute
- South China Morning Post says the trio of teenage women athletes qualifying for the Olympics was a ‘massive achievement’
“Schoolgirl Fiona Fong is going away over the Lunar New Year – to compete in the Winter Olympics,” reported the South China Morning Post on February 2, 2002.
“The 15-year-old speedskater has been given a late call-up to the tiny Hong Kong squad heading for Salt Lake City,” the story continued.
“I am very happy and excited,” Fong told the Post, adding, “I was very surprised [...] I didn’t expect to join the squad just days before they leave for the US.”
Even more surprising, Fong had only taken up speedskating a year earlier. She joined fellow short-track speedskaters Cordia Tsoi Po-yee, 17, and Christy Ren, 18, as a reserve for the first Hong Kong athletes to take part in the Winter Games.
“Simply getting to the Games is a massive achievement for the trio as Hong Kong has no Olympic-sized rink,” noted the Post.
“I believe the first chapter in the story of Hong Kong’s journey in the world of the Winter Olympics will begin at the moment our flag is hoisted in the opening ceremony,” Tsoi told the paper after arriving in Salt Lake City.