Hong Kong at the Olympics

Hong Kong at the Olympics
Hong Kong SAR
IOC code	HKG
NOC	Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China
Website	www.hkolympic.org (in English and Chinese)
Medals Ranked 77th	Gold 4 Silver 3 Bronze 6 Total 13
Summer appearances
1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024
Winter appearances
2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022

Hong Kong first competed at the Olympic Games in 1952. It competed as a British colony until 1996. After the territory's handover in 1997, it has competed since 2000 as "Hong Kong, China" with its status as a special administrative region (SAR) of China. Throughout its history, Hong Kong has participated in every Summer Olympic Games since 1952, except in 1980 in support of the United States' boycott, and in every Winter Olympic Games since 2002.

Hong Kong won its first medal and first gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics, its second gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, and its third and fourth gold medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics. It has also won eight other medals: three silvers and six bronzes. Its best performance to date (by number of gold medals) was in 2024, where it won two gold and two bronze medals.

History

The first Olympic athlete from Hong Kong was Yvonne Yeung, who competed in 1936 for the Republic of China (ROC) instead of British Hong Kong. The ROC, today mostly limited to Taiwan and a bunch of smaller islands, currently competes as Chinese Taipei. The National Olympic Committee (NOC) for Hong Kong was founded in 1950 as the Amateur Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, and is now known as the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China. It was recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1951, and subsequently, Hong Kong began to be represented separately from Great Britain (for any gold medal ceremony, the colonial flag of Hong Kong was raised and the British national anthem was played).

After Hong Kong was handed over to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, the NOC for the new special administrative region (SAR) of China has since been known as "Hong Kong, China". Hong Kong maintains its own NOC and is represented separately from mainland China at the Olympics. This is understood to be a grandfathered policy though there is no written documentation evidencing this explanation. In contrast, while Macau also has its own NOC, it is not recognised by the IOC and can only compete separately from mainland China in regional games like the Asian Games.

For any gold medal ceremony, the Hong Kong SAR flag is raised and the PRC national anthem is played, even in situations where athletes from China win silver or bronze, resulting in the Hong Kong SAR flag flying above that of China. This is nevertheless permitted under the constitution promulgated by the PRC prior to the handover (specifically, Article 151, Chapter 7 of the Basic Law), which states that Hong Kong "may, on its own, [...] maintain and develop relations and conclude and implement agreements with foreign states and regions and relevant international organizations in the appropriate fields, including the economic, trade, financial and monetary, shipping, communications, tourism, cultural and sports fields".

In 2008, Hong Kong was the site of the equestrian venues for the Beijing Summer Olympics.

Medals by Games

See also: All-time Olympic Games medal table

Medals by Summer Games

Games	Athletes	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total	Rank
as British Hong Kong
1952 Helsinki	4	0	0	0	0	-
1956 Melbourne	2	0	0	0	0	-
1960 Rome	4	0	0	0	0	-
1964 Tokyo	39	0	0	0	0	-
1968 Mexico City	11	0	0	0	0	-
1972 Munich	10	0	0	0	0	-
1976 Montreal	25	0	0	0	0	-
1980 Moscow	Did not participate
1984 Los Angeles	47	0	0	0	0	-
1988 Seoul	48	0	0	0	0	-
1992 Barcelona	38	0	0	0	0	-
1996 Atlanta	23	1	0	0	1	49
as Hong Kong, China
2000 Sydney	31	0	0	0	0	-
2004 Athens	32	0	1	0	1	65
2008 Beijing	34	0	0	0	0	-
2012 London	42	0	0	1	1	79
2016 Rio de Janeiro	37	0	0	0	0	-
2020 Tokyo	46	1	2	3	6	49
2024 Paris	36	2	0	2	4	37
2028 Los Angeles	future event
2032 Brisbane
Total		4	3	6	13	77

Medals by Winter Games

Games	Athletes	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total	Rank
2002 Salt Lake City	2	0	0	0	0	–
2006 Turin	1	0	0	0	0	–
2010 Vancouver	1	0	0	0	0	–
2014 Sochi	1	0	0	0	0	–
2018 Pyeongchang	1	0	0	0	0	–
2022 Beijing	3	0	0	0	0	–
2026 Milano Cortina	future event
2030 French Alps
2034 Salt Lake City
Total		0	0	0	0	-

Medals by sport

Sport	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Fencing	3	0	0	3
Sailing	1	0	0	1
Swimming	0	2	2	4
Table tennis	0	1	1	2
Cycling	0	0	2	2
Karate	0	0	1	1
Totals (6 entries)	4	3	6	13

List of medallists

Medal	Name	Games	Sport	Event
Gold	Lee Lai-shan	1996 Atlanta	Sailing	Women's sailboard (Mistral)
Silver	Ko Lai-chak Li Ching	2004 Athens	Table tennis	Men's doubles
Bronze	Lee Wai-sze	2012 London	Cycling	Women's keirin
Gold	Cheung Ka-long	2020 Tokyo	Fencing	Men's foil
Silver	Siobhán Haughey		Swimming	Women's 200 metre freestyle
Silver				Women's 100 metre freestyle
Bronze	Doo Hoi-kem Lee Ho-ching Minnie Soo Wai-yam		Table tennis	Women's team
Bronze	Grace Lau		Karate	Women's kata
Bronze	Lee Wai-sze		Cycling	Women's Sprint
Gold	Vivian Kong	2024 Paris	Fencing	Women's épée
Gold	Cheung Ka-long		Fencing	Men's foil
Bronze	Siobhán Haughey		Swimming	Women's 200 metre freestyle
Bronze				Women's 100 metre freestyle

Multiple medallists

Athlete	Sport	Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Siobhán Haughey	Swimming	2020, 2024	0	2	2	4
Cheung Ka-long	Fencing	2020, 2024	2	0	0	2
Lee Wai-sze	Cycling	2012, 2020	0	0	2	2

National Olympic Committee

Main article: Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China

The National Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, SF&OC, has been repeatedly warned by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) against corruption and to implement better governance. With Timothy Fok as president of the Olympic committee, there have numerous allegations of misconduct against the SF&OC and Fok. In August 2016, the Hong Kong Economic Journal released an article accusing the SF&OC and Fok of various transgressions. In April 2020, the government's Audit Commission released a 141-page report after investigating the Olympic committee, describing various failures with the SF&OC, including lax governance. An editorial published by the South China Morning Post agreed with the Audit Commission and stating that the city's sports development was at risk.

The former sports commissioner of Hong Kong, Yeung Tak-keung, said that "very few people" in the government are familiar with sports and "they often don't know much about sports, nor can they think from the perspective of sports development."

Athlete training

Main article: Hong Kong Sports Institute

The Hong Kong Sports Institute (HKSI) is a government-funded training center for elite athletes and potential Olympians in Hong Kong. It has been criticised for its decision to primarily fund 20 tier-A sports, including those not included in the Olympics and those which "may not even be able to achieve any breakthrough in the coming years", in turn neglecting support for other sport categories. After the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where Hong Kong obtained its best Olympics result with six medals, Chung Pak-kwong – former chief executive of HKSI and a sports professor at Baptist University – claimed that Hong Kong's achievements at the Olympics had been disproportionate to the amount of resources invested. Chung suggested that the territory's sports developments should have translated to medals earlier, at the 2016 Summer Olympics (where it instead obtained zero medals). In one South China Morning Post article, an anonymous senior sports official suggested that Hong Kong adopt a more "medal-oriented strategy", recommending that more support be put towards sports that Asians have traditionally performed well in – such as archery or those with weight categories like judo – where "Asians are not at a disadvantage to stronger, bigger Westerners".

Government rules

In November 2024, the government banned surfing, which effectively ruled out any possibility of Hong Kong participating in the surfing events at the Olympics.

Naming

Prior to 1997, the team's name was "Hong Kong"; after 1997, the team's name became "Hong Kong, China". In most other languages, this name is used for translation (e.g. French: Hong Kong, Chine; Russian: Гонконг, Китай Gonkong, Kitay; Simplified Chinese: 中国香港; Zhōngguó Xiānggǎng). The Japanese team name is Honkon Chaina (ホンコン・チャイナ) and the Korean team name is Hongkong Chaina (홍콩차이나), using English transliterations of the word "China" instead of the native translation.

See also

• List of flag bearers for Hong Kong at the Olympics
• Category:Olympic competitors for Hong Kong
• Hong Kong at the Paralympics
• Hong Kong at the Asian Games
• Hong Kong at the Commonwealth Games
• Tropical nations at the Winter Olympics

External links

• "Hong Kong". International Olympic Committee. 27 July 2021.
• "Hong Kong". Olympedia.com.
• "Olympic Analytics/HKG". olympanalyt.com. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
• Monique Berlioux (February 1977). "Hong Kong and Olympism" (PDF). Olympic Review (112). Lausanne: International Olympic Committee: 104–109. Retrieved 29 July 2007.