Hong Kong's Audrey Alice King competes in the first run of the women's slalom during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre in Yanqing on Feb 9, 2022. (FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)
Vice-President of the Sports Federation & Olympic Committee of Hong Kong Vivien Lau says the government should provide more funding for athletes so they can achieve better results internationally, and Hong Kong will then be able to send more elite athletes to Olympic Games in future.
Check out the full transcript of TVB’s Straight Talk host Eugene Chan’s interview with Vivien Lau.
Chan: Good evening and welcome to Straight Talk. This is Eugene Chan. Our guest tonight is Vivien Lau. She has been the vice-president of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China since 1996. She was recognized for her outstanding service to the sports industry with a Silver Bauhinia Star Medal in 2020. Tonight, Lau is going to tell us where our sports industry is heading to after the Beijing 2022 Olympics. Welcome, Vivien.
Lau: Thank you for asking me to come for the interview.
Chan: Right. You are a well-known figure in the Hong Kong sporting industry. And reading your CV, back in the 1990s, 1996, you were leading or accompanying many of our Hong Kong sportsmen to different Olympics, and also to Asian Games and many other international events throughout Asia. So you must have been there witnessing many of Hong Kong's golden moments in our sporting history.
Lau: Ah yes.
Chan: ...and which ones are the most memorable
Lau: Now, the most memorable one to me because my own sport is ten-pin bowling is Catherine Che getting a gold medal in the Seoul Asian Games in 1986.
Chan: That's Che Kuk-hung.
Lau: That was the first time Hong Kong achieved a gold medal, craving a milestone in the 32 years that Hong Kong participated in the Asian Games at that time. And then the next golden moment is of course, Lee Lai-shan, Shan Shan, getting her gold medal in Atlanta in 1996.
Chan: That was a very touching moment for many Hong Kong people, wasn't it?
Lau: Yes, because we never imagined that we could get gold and she did suffer quite a bit because she got jellyfish sting, you know when she was in the water. She got burns from the jellyfish.
Chan: Really? Right. And how about the recent Olympics in Tokyo? I mean, we did the best one so far. We have one gold in fencing, two silvers in swimming, and three bronzes in table tennis, karate and cycling. That must be the best result ever.
Lau: This is really a very good or nice surprise for us that we managed to get six medals.
Chan: So what's happening to the next Olympics? Are we going to expect anything at all?
Lau: I think after these achievements the government has already promised they will give more financial support to the sport and they are going to... do you know they are going to redevelop the old park of the Hong Kong Sports Institute? The carpark of the sports institute, and so on... Well actually, the Olympics are the ultimate aim for most athletes if they are an Olympic sport, and then Asian games and World Championships are the ultimate aims of other sports which are not in the Olympics.
Chan: The Winter Olympics are happening right now in Beijing and I was privileged enough to watch the opening ceremony. And you realize when the Hong Kong delegation came through, we only had like four people.
Lau: Three athletes.
Chan: Yes, we had three athletes going to the Winter Olympics. And the flagbearer isn't an athlete. The other two couldn't be there for each other... I think they were COVID positive so they couldn’t be at the opening ceremony. So we are in single digits. When you look back on all the Olympics that we have had from 2002, until this year, there are always single digits of athletes joining that Olympics, but it's very good that we do go. Is it because we have lack of facilities and the lack of the ski slopes in Hong Kong is the reason why we don't have all the athletes to go?
Lau: Actually ice skating has a longer history than the Skiing Association. But so far up till now, the government has not subsidized, no funding for these associations. And it's not in the Policy Address of the government ever. But we have been participating because we are the NOC (National Olympics Committee in Hong Kong), and these two associations are under our umbrella. And so if the athletes manage to qualify for the Winter Olympics, then we will send them but they have to work hard because there's no funding from the government. So it depends on sponsorships, or the patrons of the associations to give them money to train. Then the second difficulty was that we don't have venues. We do have an ice skating rink, but they are commercial. And of course we can't have a ski slope. Right. So the skier either comes from the United States or from Europe in which they study and they are born in Hong Kong. And so the only way they can train is to go to the Chinese mainland. But for ice skating, at least they have commercial venues in which they can use.
Chan: Vivien, when you mentioned NOC you're referring to the National Olympics Committee in Hong Kong. And I'm sure all the viewers will only watch the great moments of participation and winning on the athletes’ side, but I'm sure there's a lot more to it for the sports to be successful. Can you tell us? What are the roles... I mean, you have the administrator, you have the coach, you have the supporting team, and even commercial sponsors or even government sponsors, how important is each one of them, in your opinion?
Lau: Okay, the most important is what we call the NSA, National Sport Association that governs each of the sports. Actually, Hong Kong Sport Institute is an elite training center. So where do all the athletes come from, from the development plan of the NSA and when they are trained to a certain standard, if they achieve good, then they might become an elite sport with continuous access. Otherwise, they are still under developing sports. This is the part of the administrator, we are all volunteers in our own associations, nobody gets paid. And then, the next step is elite training at the Hong Kong Sports Institute.
Chan: In Shatin.
Lau: It is a statutory organization. And then, there is the sports development board as well. Now they provide the venue and the funding from the government to train the athletes that are elite in the sense that they are talented, they have potential. So that part, we leave it to the Hong Kong Sports Institute, for the rest of the development sports, they have to train either in the Leisure Cultural and Services Department venue or a commercial venue like tenpin bowling. So in other words, the government does play a part in different sports.
Chan: Let's go back to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, which just happened on the 4th of February, which was last week. And you saw that there was ice skating, virtual ice skating and then breaking the ice, showing that it breaks barriers and promotes understanding and fostering peace. But this year, unfortunately, we read from the news that some of the Western countries have declined to send officials to attend the opening ceremony. But the IOC President Thomas Bach said a very encouraging comment. He said the Olympic Games have always been bridges and never erecting walls. So many say the sport is a very good way to unite people. Do you agree with your experience?
Lau: In the past, it seems to be but then, in the recent 20 years, remember the Moscow Olympic Games? There was a boycott by many countries. This is all wrong, because you cannot mix up sports and politics. Unfortunately, in recent times, they do.
Chan: But imagine the athletes if you withdraw from games like Moscow, imagine the athletes train for so many years the target is to achieve good results. It's not fair, isn't it?
Lau: It's not fair to them.
Chan: I remembered back in the world wars, even the Olympics would still go on. But why is it not happening right now
Lau: That's because too many politics in the world, you know, and too many misconceptions about China, especially this Beijing one, you know, they talk about genocide, you know, the Xinjiang people and all that. But that's not true. We all know that.
Chan: So how does all these boycotts affect the athlete's performance?
Lau: Now, it's better than the Moscow Olympics in which they withdraw the whole team, the country. Now they only say they won't send their dignitaries, the presidents won't attend. So it doesn't affect the athletes so much. But you must have read from Facebook, media that Americans are teaching athletes to say bad things. But then suddenly, on social media platforms, the athletes are saying they like it in China, the food is good.
Chan: It's very encouraging to hear all that.
Lau: And they show the room in which the bed is really fantastic.
Chan: Compared to the Tokyo one.
Lau: Yes, compared to Tokyo, and then they show the goodie bag, which we call the goodie bag, with the mascot. And they also have all kinds of nice food. So that thing doesn't work in a way. But I, as an athlete, myself before and as an administrator, I do hate this kind of thing. Sports and politics should not mix no matter how you fight each other.
Chan: We talked about Hong Kong golden moments, we talked about sports should not be affected by politics. Let’s move on to the personal journey of an athlete. You being an athlete yourself, in tenpin bowling, you had some very happy moments, but I'm sure many viewers are going to ask you - what are the most challenging times being an athlete? And we are very grateful to see some great athletes now but I'm sure all of them, including yourself, had gone through very tough times.
Lau: Well, let’s say the present athletes are more lucky than we were in the past because when we were athletes at that time, there was not much government funding, or none at all. And then we practiced on our own. But for the athletes now… the challenge is whether they want to become a full-time athlete or part-time. To me, full-time athletes mean that they are given a subvention by the government. We call it a grant by the government, so they can focus on training all the time and can go to competition whenever they are sent to.
Chan: Right, so the government have been supporting us for the last 30 years.
Lau: But the support has been bigger. Now you have a benchmark, you have criteria, to become an elite sport. Now as for the athletes, you'll find that out of the 14-15 elite sports, swimming is the one that has less full-time athletes because their athletes usually go to study in the (United) States, but that's also good for them in that they can be trained there, and they come back to Hong Kong when they have to go for games. And then the other challenge some athletes face is the parents. Whether they like their children to continue to spend all that time just training, go on competitions, try to achieve results, or to study or after study, work, have a career.
Chan: So with the recent Olympic success, where we have so many medals, is it because of all those factors interplaying together for this to happen? I mean that means in the past, if all of you, your time and your colleagues had such support as well, maybe Hong Kong would do even better in the past times?
Lau: Yes, unfortunately in my time, the government doesn't play so much emphasis on sports.
Chan: Right. Another issue I want to ask you is about all this social media pressure. One of the athletes in Beijing, Zhu Yi, the ice skater, she had been having a lot of online abuse on Weibo. How does that affect their performance?
Lau: Now, when they become really a full-time athlete, they need to have a tough mentality. So you know you are being attacked by these people on the social media. If I were the athlete, I would have simply ignored and not look at all those things. I will not look at my post, I may shut down my post when I am in the games. And then just focus on the training.
Chan: But if you say that, another personality, Eileen Gu, which suddenly became a star for many viewers, she had such a positive attitude, but she is still getting all these attacks from the Western media, say she has not been grateful to the US. So now sports is being politicized, as you just mentioned, you don't like it. How would you advise other athletes when they face such issues? Just ignore them altogether?
Lau: Yes, I would say so, especially when you're in a game and you're competing, maybe for the last time if your age has reached a certain limit, why did you let this kind of social media posting affect you? I would have said “why don't you stop looking at your Facebook, at your Instagram, during this period if you feel you're being attached? Can you imagine if you are diverted by this kind of nonsense, in a way, you won't be able to focus”. But Eileen has a very strong EQ, I noticed. The way she answered the press question about her nationality, about her training and all that, you know. She's really good.
Chan: How does Hong Kong, because of “one country, two systems”, because of the Basic Law, we still maintain as a separate entity in the sporting world. Has that been beneficial to the Hong Kong athletes?
Lau: We must thank Mr. Sales, then president of the Sports Federation & Olympic Committee of Hong Kong. Not only Mr. Sales, also Mr Fok Ying-tung…
Chan: Mr. Henry Fok, yes?
Lau: Henry Fok also played a part in trying to establish that we will still maintain a separate entity in sports and culture. And so we are very fortunate, we can still march in opening ceremony and closing ceremony, as Hong Kong, China.
Chan: So Hong Kong is very unique?
Lau: Hong Kong is very unique that we manage because can you imagine if our athletes compare to the Chinese athletes, there may not be an opportunity for them to participate in games.
Chan: Because there is far more competition?
Lau: Yes.
Chan: Just now you mentioned the Sports Institute a couple of times and we know that they sponsor our elite athletes and they become full-time athletes. And I believe they support 20 tier-A and 13 tier-B sports. You mentioned even earlier about the Winter Olympics Games, either speed-skating and skiing, they are not elite sports. So it all relies on other sponsors, so will this be changed after this Winter Olympics?
Lau: You mean the winter sports?
Chan: Yes.
Lau: I don't think it will change because you can see that even though we participate in this since 2002 in Salt Lake City, there has been no great achievement, so it will not be changed.
Chan: Should this be changed, do you think?
Lau: We don't have the facility, and yet these athletes have to qualify to go to the Winter Games, and they managed to get qualified. So the government should look at it this way - if you don't help them, how do you expect them to achieve to a higher level? So there is talk about the Whitehead Sports Park, after the Kai Tak Sports Park, we were hoping that government will build an ice skating rink for the skaters. Of course we won't be able to get a ski slope and they still have to go back to the Chinese mainland or to Europe.
Chan: At least we got some of it here.
Lau: At least we got the skater. And you can also develop ice hockey as well, and even curling. About curling, some of them look forward to having it with the Hong Kong team.
Chan: Professor Chung Pak-kwong from the Hong Kong Baptist University says the revamp of the athletes training is needed. An official also mentioned that we Asians should concentrate on sports that doesn’t rely so much on our physique, like shooting or archery or even table tennis, for example. But not on something like Judo or Karate, Taekwondo. But Karate has proven that we have done it. So do you think we should work along that line
Lau: Yes, in a way. In a way like snooker, shooting, even tenpin bowling, they are sort of a mind game.
You see their athlete lifespan is longer because it doesn't really need that kind of explosive energy. And we should actually train more of those athletes which are in sports that can be competing with the European countries. And that is also a good move. But then it doesn't mean that we cannot really compete with other countries and regions in sports that need more strength, but however, it is a bit difficult with our Asia builds and all that.
Chan: Vivien, after the recent success in Winter Olympics, the chief executive has announced the government’s three-pronged approach in the sporting policy, like promoting elite sports, promoting sports in the community, and also maintaining all these major international sport events. With the upcoming Chief Executive election in March, what will be your wish list to the chief executive, in terms of sports?
Lau: My wishes are the chief executive spends more money on the developing sports. There are 3 committees under the sport commission. So to me, coach is a very important thing…
Chan: Is money the only issue that we need?
Lau: Yes. Very simple, more funding and we have more success. Because now the development sports cannot have a full-time coach unless they come up with sponsorship. So without a full-time coach, the athletes’ improvement will be limited.
Chan: Okay, we will definitely keep that in mind when we meet potential candidates in the future.
Lau: Yes, please do.
Chan: Thank you, Vivien, for giving our viewers an understanding of the challenges our athletes face, and how so many different factors have to work together for Hong Kong to achieve success. Thank you.
