| With the opening of Hong Kong’s HK$32 billion ($4.1 billion) sports park in Kai Tak, focus is shifting to the city’s ability to nurture local talent. It’s not easy being an elite athlete anywhere. But Hong Kong presents a unique set of challenges: an unforgiving climate, high cost of living, limited sporting facilities and a culture that generally prizes boardrooms over locker rooms. A crop of world-class athletes has emerged from the city nonetheless. And if medal hauls from the two most recent Olympic Games are any indication, local sporting development is gaining momentum. At the 2021 and 2024 Olympics, Hong Kong athletes won a combined 10 medals — more than the total count in all preceding Summer Games since the city first started competing in the Olympics in 1952. The medals also come with big paydays. Hong Kong fencers Edgar Cheung and Vivian Kong each earned a HK$6 million ($772,000) bonus for their golds at last year’s Paris Olympics — one of the biggest financial rewards an Olympian can get. Swimmer Siobhan Haughey got HK$3 million for her two bronzes.  Hong Kong Olympic gold medalist Vivian Kong. Photographer: Fabrice Coffrini/Getty Images And there’s little sign the government is pulling back on sports spending even as the city’s deficit balloons. It expects to splash out HK$7.9 billion on the industry’s development this fiscal year, double the amount a decade ago, according to the sports minister. Meanwhile, officials hope the state-of-the-art Kai Tak stadium will woo star teams. But even in a city where money talks loudest, hard cash alone is unlikely to turn Hong Kong into a sporting powerhouse. Often, the challenge isn’t how big the pot of gold is, but how it’s spent. Consider the Hong Kong Sports Institute, financed by a government-endowed fund from which HK$942 million will be deployed this fiscal year, up 40% from five years ago, according to a spokesperson from the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau. As part of the bureau’s aim of offering “all-round support and assistance” to elite sports, HKSI provides monthly stipends to select top athletes. Olympic disciplines are prioritized, and grants are scaled based on performance in international competitions. A full-time athlete who has medaled at the Olympics can make up to HK$50,000 per month, about 2.5 times the city’s median monthly wage. Those who haven't quite reached world-class standards, but have podiumed in major international contests, stand to make barely HK$7,000 a month — less than minimum wage. If only high-performing athletes are eligible for stipends, that leads to a chicken-and-egg conundrum of how to cultivate athletes to begin with. “Our society mostly takes pride when a team wins medals and trophies,” said Lau Sze-wa, 36, a performance coach at Apex Team Fencing who represented Hong Kong in the 2017 women’s 15-a-side Rugby World Cup. “It’s hard to win their support while we are still in the process.” Sometimes what’s lacking is just plain old infrastructure designed with athletes in mind. Olympic marathoner Christy Yiu Kit-ching would know. The 36-year-old, who represented Hong Kong at the 2016 Rio Games, said the city has a dearth of non-concrete running surfaces for long-distance running training — crucial for cushioning the miles of pounding on bones and joints. The little grass there is in parks and sports grounds is generally off limits. “When we run on grass, we get yelled at,” she said. —Mary Hui Five Minutes With: Vivian Siu | Vivian Siu works in investment banking in Hong Kong — and is also a pioneering race car driver. In 2023, she became the first woman to finish the Formula 4 race, an event targeted at entry-level racing drivers, in the Macau Grand Prix, and the first female to compete in the Formula 4 Chinese Championship. That year, she also won Hong Kong’s first-ever gold medal at the FIA Asia Pacific Motorsport Championship in the gymkhana event, which involves maneuvering around obstacles and performing different driving techniques. We talked to her how she went from a newbie go-kart driver to racing in an F4. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How did you become a race car driver? There are actually no racing tracks in Hong Kong at all. Zero. When Covid ended in Hong Kong and the borders finally reopened, I just wanted to go to China right away and try go-karting. That’s where I met an amateur racing team, called T-1 Racing. I got to join their team. That’s how my racing journey started very quickly. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I didn’t really train or have any particular learning. I just kind of hopped on and drove for a few times. I tried out karting, and it wasn’t even serious karting. And then in April, the team offered a Formula experience day, and I tried out a Formula 4 car. Six months later, in November 2023, I was in the Macau Grand Prix.  Vivian Siu Source: Courtesy of Vivian Siu Tell me about your racing experience. I felt like I was never fully prepared, or even 80% prepared, for any of my races. I don’t work out, and the steering wheel is so heavy. All the other drivers, they can turn the wheel 100%, and I’m maybe at 65% because I’m just not strong enough. But I was always curious: How far can I actually go? But each time going into it, I was always so underprepared. I really enjoy the process. Don’t get me wrong. Each race, I’m very grateful that I get to do it. But the learning curve was so steep. If I crash and I can’t go to work the next day, I’m screwed. What if I break a leg and can’t walk to my client meeting? That’s the craziest thing. After the Macau Grand Prix, I had work the next day. The biggest day of my life, and the next day I was back at work, before 8 a.m. What’s it like being a race car driver in Hong Kong? It’s very, very hard for Hong Kong to be in motorsports. There’s no support, there’s no space, there’s no funding. And that’s why nobody knows about motorsports here — it is extremely underrepresented and no one cares. There’s always a misconception that motorsports is dangerous or something, and fei zai [Cantonese slang for hooligan-like behavior]. I’m not sure what it is about Hong Kong that’s just not supporting it. It’s been very frustrating because we have such a miracle story, the first gold for Hong Kong in motor sports, but nobody knows about it. That’s why I want my story out there, because I randomly decided to take the first step. —Mary Hui The sports bureau didn't have an immediate comment on the development of motorsports in Hong Kong. Siu’s story is the subject of a documentary called Zero to Macao, which was released in January and directed by Jonathan Finnigan. It’s available on Now TV in serialized format. Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club is set to host a screening (date to be confirmed). Speaking of fast driving, a couple weeks ago we celebrated our first birthday with a competition asking readers for their bright ideas to fix Hong Kong’s taxi industry. We got dozens of responses — some of which were delightful (champagne cooler, anyone?), others offered strategies to resolve the regulatory issues. There were many common themes, including wider acceptance of non-cash payments, autonomous cars, driver ratings and better training (Michael suggested taking advantage of the weak yen and sending our cabbies to Japan for training from “the world’s best drivers”). One of the speediest — and most entertaining — responses to hit our inbox came from Greg, who fully embraced the erratic driving Hong Kong taxis are sometimes known for. He argued installing a four-point harness like those in race cars was cheaper than airbags. Also: “To get from Point A to Point B even quicker, HK taxi drivers should learn to drift.” (We’re pretty sure many already know how.) Our favorite 10 submissions won a one-year subscription to Bloomberg.com. We loved hearing from you all. As always, you can drop us a line at hkedition@bloomberg.net. | 
