Who are Hong Kong’s world champions? Siobhan Haughey is one of many athletes from the city to become best in the world in their respective sports
- Lawn bowls, cycling, windsurfing, snooker, wushu and tenpin bowling have all seen world champions from Hong Kong, with Haughey the latest to join the club
- Windsurfer Lee Lai-shan is the first world champion from Hong Kong in an Olympic sport, three years before claiming the gold medal at Atlanta 1996
Hong Kong may be a small city in terms of size but the city, in recent years, has been punching above its weight in terms of sport. This was higtaihlighted by the success of our athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic when we brought home one gold, two silver and three bronze medals.
Few Hongkongers realise, though, that we have had world champions since 1970 in a variety of sports. Swimmer Siobhan Haughey – who won the short course title in the women’s 200m freestyle on Thursday – is Hong Kong’s 10th world champion in sports that are featured, or used to feature, in major multi-sport events such as the Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. Here are our world-beaters, going back to our lawn bowlers in 1972.
Lawn bowls 1972, 1977, 1980, 1981
An Australia-born engineer and a Hong Kong native accountant of Portuguese descent are city’s first known world champions – in lawn bowls, a discipline that has long been part of the city’s sporting culture and which has produced multiple world and regional champions.
In 1972, Eric Liddell, who worked in the telephone industry, and Saco Delgado claimed gold in the pairs event of the world championships in Scotland. It was the first of four world titles for Hong Kong in lawn bowls. Liddell was part of the men’s fours team who won the 1980 title, also featuring Omar Dallah, George Souza and Philip Chok. In 1977, Helen Wong and Elvie Chok took the women’s pairs world crown and four years later, Lena Sadick, Rae O’Donnell and Linda King won the world triples title for Hong Kong.
Windsurfing 1993 – Lee Lai-shan, women’s mistral