Hong Kong athletes allowed to travel overseas for training and competition amid Omicron spread, Sports Institute says
- The elite training centre will factor in the pandemic situation in a specific country and organisers’ safety measures before giving the green light
- Snooker player Ng On-yee may be prevented from returning to England because of the rising number of new cases in the United Kingdom
The Hong Kong Sports Institute said it would not stop their athletes travelling overseas for training and competition despite the global resurgence of Covid-19 cases caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant.
Last week, seven Hong Kong karate athletes, including National Games bronze medal winner Lau Chi-ming, tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from the Asian Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Five tested positive on arrival and two were found to be infected days later.
A number of fencers and snooker’s three-time women’s world champion Ng On-yee are due to fly out of Hong Kong in January. Raymond So Chi-hung, director of elite training science & technology at the Institute, said they had to balance athletes’ need for competition and the danger brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It would be easy for us to keep all the athletes at the Fo Tan complex under a closed camp environment for the sake of safety control,” So said. “But with the Asian Games and other major events up and coming, we can’t do that as athletes need competition as part of their preparations or they can’t get the desired results.
“We have a set of standards for consideration when reviewing our athletes’ participation in overseas events. This includes the health control measures provided by the organisers, whether there is a safety bubble set up for the event, the number of cases found in the hosting country but all these are for reference only as the pandemic situation keeps changing.