Lee Lai-shan’s gold still the pinnacle of Hong Kong sporting achievement more than two decades after her 1996 Olympic success

Hong Kong’s women athletes have a long history of participating in the Olympic Games and more than two decades after Lee Lai-shan lifted a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games, the retired windsurfer still stands at top of the pile as the most successful athlete Hong Kong has ever produced for her Olympic achievement.

Lee’s success in the mistral one-design event was also the first Olympic medal for Hong Kong, which was recognised as a National Olympic Committee in its own right by the International Olympic Committee in 1951 before using the name Hong Kong for the first time to take part in the 1952 Helsinki Games.

But the first Hong Kong women’s athlete went to the Olympics long before that. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, young swimmer Yeung Sau-king, who was then a Hong Kong champion swimming for the South China Athletics Association, was selected to represent the then Republic of China, along with eight male Hong Kong footballers who formed the backbone of the China team.

The then 17-year-old Yeung took part in two events, the 100-metre freestyle and 100-metre backstroke, and was unable to go beyond the preliminary heats, but had already made history as the first Hong Kong female athlete to feature in the Olympics. And 60 years later, another Hong Kong female athlete created another piece of history.

Windsurfer Lee, who took part in the 1992 Barcelona Games and finished in 11th place, moved a big step forward four years later after defeating top boardsailors from all over the world to clinch a gold medal. Many people still recall Lee’s famous cry immediately after her victory in Savannah: “Hong Kong athletes are not rubbish!”