By many metrics, the city’s athletes have enjoyed their best Games ever. The 53 medals was a record haul, and included gold for the first time in swimming, the women’s road cycling and golf, a first athletics medal not won on the track, and several personal bests.

Not a day seemed to go by when the Hong Kong flag was not raised on multiple occasions as athletes stepped onto the podium, and it was well into the second week of full competition before that stopped.

The overall tally put the city in the top 10 of medals won, while the eight gold was good enough for 12th place out of the 27 countries that managed to get one.

Combined with the historic six medals collected at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, there has been every reason to believe Hong Kong’s sporting prowess is on the rise.

Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, the chef de mission this Asiad edition, highlighted “the wealth of talent in Hong Kong’s sports sector”, while revelling in the records, both local and regional, that were broken – mostly by swimmer Siobhan Haughey, a generational talent who does not appear to have a successor.

But scratch below the surface and there are questions that need to be asked of the city’s Sports Institute, which has received billions in taxpayers’ cash.

With 680 athletes representing the city, about 100 more than travelled to Jakarta, this was the largest delegation ever sent to a Games, but the eight golds matched the feat from the 2018 Games, and it needed the men’s bridge team to make that happen.

This year’s total also included two from Haughey, who did not compete five years ago, one in fencing from Cheung Ka-long, Taichi Kho’s golf gold, Lam Sam-tung and Wong Wai-chun in men’s rowing and Yang Quanyu in cycling.

Men’s rugby aside, the golds that were claimed in Jakarta in squash, track cycling and equestrian turned into silver and bronze in Hangzhou. The gymnastics gold of Shek Wai-hung in the men’s vault in 2018 became second from last in the final this time.

Opponents improve, while ebb and flow is a natural part of sport, and gold requires an element of good fortune as much as skill when it comes to major Games. But there were also two fewer silvers than last time, even if nine extra bronzes more than made up for the shortfall.

Some new stars have emerged. In cycling, for instance, Ceci Lee Sze-wing appears ready to fill the void left by the retired Sarah Lee Wai-sze, while fencer Daphne Chan Nok-sze and 17-year-old swimmer Cindy Cheung Sum-yuet have the potential to upgrade the bronze medals they won.

But the HK$7.4 billion (US$945 million) that the government says has been spent in the past decade on the development of sportsmen and women needs to be accounted for, and in gymnastics, athletics and elsewhere, it is time to ask some hard questions.

Tiffany Yue Nga-yan’s bronze in the women’s long jump was the city’s first track and field medal not won by sprinters and hurdlers, and only the fourth ever in athletics at a Games. And while it was a city record, Yue’s leap of 6.50 metres was average at best when put in the context of Olympic qualifying, which for Paris is 6.86m.

Her teammates, meanwhile, rarely appeared in danger of making a final, let alone winning a medal. Bahrain, with its population of roughly 1.4 million people, won 12 gold medals in Hangzhou, 10 of them in athletics.

In gymnastics, Shek’s golds in 2014 and 2018 have proved to be an outlier, and Hong Kong was represented by the 36-year-old Angel Wong Hiu-ying, and three 32-year-olds in Ng Ka-ki, Ng Kiu-chung and Jim Man-hin.

Development-wise, the next gymnast of note is 15-year-old Amber Ward, who could have competed for Singapore, Australia or Hong Kong, and has been trained in Melbourne from an early age. She has fallen into the Sports Institute’s lap.

Then there is badminton, on a downward spiral long before Angus Ng Ka-long, who has plummeted to 18th in the world, expressed “no regrets” at crashing out in the first round.

These are by no means the only examples, but all three sports enjoy Tier A status, meaning they get significant funding and their athletes are also well subsidised. Maintaining that position requires only that sports “competed / will compete in at least three editions in the past four and coming two editions of the Olympic Games or Asian Games”.

Fok said he wanted to see “an even more vibrant sports development in Hong Kong”. Amending what constitutes success would be a start, ideally beginning on Tuesday.