Hong Kong Athletics will stage later National Championships after Tokyo 2020 move
- Annual National Championships attract stars such as China’s top sprinter Su Bingtian to Hong Kong
- Organisers hope larger overseas contingent can boost performance of local athletes chasing Olympic tickets
The Hong Kong Amateur Athletics Association plans to postpone the forthcoming National Championships until the epidemic is over in hopes of attracting overseas competitors to help home athletes chase their Olympic qualification.
With the IOC decision to push back the 2020 Tokyo Games until next year, the association will have more flexibility for staging their annual event, which has featured top Chinese sprinter Su Bingtian, long jumper Wang Jinan and women’s high jumpers from former Soviet states before.
“The National Championships offer bonus points towards their world rankings and if our athletes can do well, it will bolster their Olympic qualification hopes,” association senior vice-chairman Simon Yeung Sai-mo said.
“The event was scheduled for May but I think it would be a difficult time to attract overseas competitors due to many unknowns brought by the epidemic. But now we can choose a later time when the epidemic situation has improved because the Tokyo Games will not be held until next year.
“Our athletes have been hampered by the lack of competitions to boost their rankings due to the virus outbreak all over the world and we have to put forward something to help them.”
Yeung said they were still waiting for the IAAF, the international federation, to publish any adaptation to the qualification system but it is logical to think it would be extended for a period of time after the pushing back the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Hurdler Vera Lui Lai-yiu and long jumper Yue Ya-xin were forced to return to Hong Kong after last week’s Queensland Track Classic in Brisbane, the first silver-level event in the World Athletics Continental Tour for 2020, was postponed.
Lui and Yue, ranked 55th and 62nd respectively in their disciplines, still have a chance to make it to Tokyo but will need more competitions to help boost their world rankings. Both athletes also qualified for the Asian Indoor Championships in Hangzhou, China, in February but the event was also called off.
Other Hong Kong athletes chasing an Tokyo Olympic ticket include marathon runner Christy Yiu Kit-ching, race walker Ching Siu-nga and men’s long jumper Chan Ming-tai.
Ching’s Asian Championships in Nomi, Japan, this month was also called off but the 33-year-old stands a good chance of qualifying with her 39th place in the world rankings.
Yiu’s last marathon race was already eight months ago when she set a Hong Kong record of two hours, 34 minutes and seven seconds in Gold Coast, Queensland. The Rio Olympian suffered a foot injury in December before the Asian Championships and is hoping to race in Latvia in May after a lengthy recovery.
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