The 6th Changchun Asian Winter Games ¡V Performance of the Hong Kong Delegation

The 6^th Asian Winter Games was held from 28 January to 4 February 2007 in Changchun, China. The theme of the 6^th CAWG is ¡§Asian Winter Games, Charming Changchun¡¨. Hong Kong Delegation, with a total of 26 athletes, had participated in 3 sports out of 10 sports, namely: Ice Hockey (23 male athletes), Figure Skating (1 male athlete) and Short Track Speed Skating (2 female athletes). The 43-member delegation including Headquarters Officials, Team Managers and Coaches was the largest ever Hong Kong Delegation for the Asian Winter Games.

The overall results of the Hong Kong Delegation to the 6^th Asian Winter Games are tabled as follows:-  

 The development of the winter sports in Hong Kong is still in the starting stage. Due to the geographic constraints, Hong Kong can only focus on the development of ice sports rather than the snow sports. In the Asian region, there are five strong teams in winter sports, namely China, Japan, Korea, DPR Korea and Kazakhstan. In the events of short track speed skating and figure skating, Hong Kong is in the second tier with other close competitors such as Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Chinese Taipei.

In comparing with the Asian counterparts, Hong Kong is a very small place with limited resources for winter sports development. Under this difficult situation, it is encouraging to see Hong Kong to defeat DPR Korea and Kazakhstan to achieve 7^th position in Women¡¦s 1500m short track speed skating, which, was our best ever result achieved in the Asian Winter Games. It is no doubt a good sign for the future development of winter sports in Hong Kong.

Sports Federation & Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China

3 February 2007