Opinion | Immigration red tape thwarts HK skier's Olympic dream and points to eligibility headache ahead of Asian Games

Freestyle skier Alexander Glavatsky-Yeadon had hoped to usher in his 20th birthday on the Sochi pistes. But the teenager is now resigned to watching the Winter Olympics on television like the rest of us, despite having qualified for the Games on merit.

An e-mail popped up in our inbox the other day from his mum, Alexandra Vermala, informing us that her son "Xander" had "qualified under [the] FIS points system for the Olympics". She had first been in touch last November when Xander was still trying to meet the sporting criteria for qualification while hoping the Hong Kong Olympic Committee would help him negotiate the red tape regarding legal eligibility for the Olympics. She wondered whether local Olympic officials could assist him in acquiring a Hong Kong SAR passport in a hurry, or ask for a special dispensation from the International Olympic Committee. Despite being born in Hong Kong and having a permanent ID card, Xander was not eligible to go to the Olympics because he did not have an HKSAR passport.

Last November, the former French International School student had still not qualified for the Olympics as he did not have the requisite points.

Now, his mum says, he has achieved those points, but finds the Immigration Department door firmly shut even though he had expressed his willingness to give up his Canadian and British passports and apply for a local travel document, as he had done in an application two years ago. That application was turned down, apparently because he was not Chinese.

When that door closed, they tried approaching the Hong Kong Olympic Committee hoping they could pull off the same miracle that saw swimmer Hannah Wilson realising her Olympic dream in 2004. Wilson, who was 15 then, had been in the same position. To make matters worse, she was a minor and couldn't give up her British passport.

The local Olympic committee fought her case and successfully got dispensation from the International Olympic Committee. And the rest, as they say, is history. Wilson, the city's top 100 metres freestyler, not only went to the Athens Games, she also took part in the Beijing Olympics and the London Olympics.