Chinese all over the world have a “double happiness” to celebrate this month — the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

The two big events, coincidentally, happen in the same month, making   this February full of joy and excitement. The Spring Festival is traditionally an important occasion for family reunions and greeting relatives and friends. This year, with the blend-in sports event, Chinese New Year gatherings will certainly become more thrilling and entertaining. We can cheer our nation’s athletes live on television in the Olympic Games while enjoying sumptuous meals with family members and visiting friends.

The trio will be the largest Hong Kong team to participate in the Olympic Winter Games since 2002. Bearing in mind Hong Kong is a very hot and humid city almost all year round, we severely lack winter sports facilities. Taking to winter sports, such as ice skating on a regular basis, is a luxury pastime for many in Hong Kong. Hong Kong people, although not familiar with winter sports because of the city’s subtropical climate, are eagerly looking forward to the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics to be held from Feb 4 to 20. Hong Kong will have three of its athletes competing in the Games — Sidney Chu Ting-man in short track speed skating, and Adrian Yung Hau-tsuen and Audrey King in alpine skiing.  

Hong Kong people, although not familiar with winter sports because of the city’s subtropical climate, are eagerly looking forward to the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics to be held from Feb 4 to 20

The majority of the city’s residents may only have the chance to try skiing while holidaying in countries with a wintry climate. So, winter sports have never been popular here.  It’s absolutely not easy to see three Hong Kong athletes competing in top international winter sports events. We’re proud of Chu, Yung and King.

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Hong Kong’s regional team of athletes is allowed to compete alongside China’s national team in the Olympics and other international tournaments. This is the privilege we have been enjoying since 1954 when Hong Kong was still under British rule.  And after Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, this special status has remained unchanged, thanks to “one country, two systems”. 

Without this special arrangement, many budding local athletes would otherwise have to compete with their world-class mainland counterparts for representation before they’re eligible to compete in any international sports events.

If this were the case, the development of local elite sports would have been greatly hindered. Whether we could ultimately come up with locally-trained top sports stars like foil fencer Edgar Cheung Ka-long and cycling star Sarah Lee Wai-sze, is something nobody could really tell.

It’s exactly this privilege enjoyed by Hong Kong that has enabled many budding local athletes to gain international exposure and experience in their early days, paving the way for them to become famous sports stars. For elite local winter sports athletes, if they were to compete with their mainland counterparts for representation in the national team, that would be an uphill battle for them.

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On the other hand, the close interaction between local athletes and their mainland counterparts after 1997 through mutual training and sharing facilities have had a win-win effect, especially for local winter sports athletes. 

Take Chu, for instance. He’s a 2019 Asian Championships silver and bronze medalist, as well as a five-time local champion. Chu and his teammates have been training intensively in cities on the Chinese mainland, such as Changchun and Beijing, in the past five years because Hong Kong has no standardized rinks for the sport.  He said his team has not celebrated the Spring Festival at home for about five years.

Chu, 21, was originally eligible for the 2018 Pyeongchang OWG. However, a last-minute leg injury shattered his Olympic dream. He said the COVID-19 pandemic has also placed an extra burden on his team because mandatory quarantine in both Hong Kong and on the mainland has left them stuck in Hong Kong. They did not have any access to ice for a whole year. Fortunately, his consistent results in the last four World Cup events have made him eligible to compete in this year‘s OWG.

As for Yung and King, both of them have finished their tough training in Bosnia, Southeastern Europe where they had stayed since June last year. They said the pandemic has greatly interrupted their training and maintenance of physical conditions, but vowed to give their very best in the upcoming competitions. 

Yung, 17, could have represented the United Kingdom or Malaysia, but has chosen to compete for Hong Kong because of his affection for the city.  The 19-year-old King even gave up her studies for a year to prepare for OWG.

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Having learnt the training hardships and sacrifices Chu, Yung and King have undergone in the past few years, Hong Kong people have no reason not to support them, especially when the nation will be hosting the OWG. 

This is the first time China is hosting the Winter Olympics, and the second time for the nation to host the Games after the Summer Olympics in 2008.  Beijing has also become the first city in Olympics’ history to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games. As one of the two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong feels proud.

Unlike other past OWGs which were almost unnoticeable to local people, a local TV station has secured the exclusive right to broadcast the Beijing OWG, providing free prelude programs and variety shows, plus more than 120 hours of live coverage. Taken into account the current Omicron outbreak in Hong Kong, watching OWG programs to cheer up our national team and, of course, our local athletes is absolutely the best home entertainment for Hong Kong people during the Chinese New Year holidays.

Moreover, it’s also an excellent opportunity for Hong Kong people to learn more about different winter sports items, broadening our knowledge and interest in this very aspect.

The many innovative environmentally friendly measures taken, signature facilities specially built and interesting features invented for this “green, sharing, open and clean” Winter Olympics managed under a COVID-safe closed loop system are also of great interest to billions of viewers across the globe.

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It also serves as a venue for China to showcase its application of artificial intelligence technology in daily life, such as meals are prepared electronically in the Olympic Village’s kitchen and delivered from the ceiling by food-serving robots, minimizing physical contact and possible transmission of the virus.

There’s also one particular aspect during the Winter Olympics that Hong Kong needs to observe and learn from — the trial of the digital currency, dubbed e-CNY, for the first time within the closed loop.  Besides cash and bank cards, consumers are free to choose whether they prefer to use the digital yuan wallet app installed in their smartphones or a physical digital wallet in the form of a card or wristband.

It’s the nation’s policy to enhance cross-border settlement and RMB internationalization by using e-CNY. As a world-class financial center of China, Hong Kong needs to catch up with financial technology to maintain our competitiveness.

So, don’t miss the Beijing Winter Olympics and stay tuned to it.

The author is a member of the Hong Kong Association of Media Veterans and a freelance writer.