Hong Kong Sports Institute on Wednesday released a report detailing its budget and achievements in 2023-24, revealing that it spent HK$822.9 million on training athletes.
The taxpayer-funded organisation’s outlay supported 1,443 senior and junior athletes, 620 of whom it listed as being full-time, during a period when the city won 53 medals at the Asian Games.
Hong Kong also collected 47 medals at the Asian Para Games, 12 at the World University Games and 33 at various world championships.
According to the HKSI report, a breakdown of the HK$822.9 million included HK$176 million in payments to athletes under the “direct financial support scheme” and HK$646.9 million for athletes’ training programmes, sports science and medicine support, lifestyle provisions and education subsidies for the athletes.
The Asian Games of 2023 were the city’s best in terms of total medals won – albeit that it took 680 athletes, 100 more than went to the previous edition in 2018, and earned the same tally of eight gold medals.
Topping the podium were Siobhan Haughey – twice – in swimming, fencer Cheung Ka-long, Taichi Kho in golf, men’s rowers Lam San-tung and Wong Wai-chun, cyclist Yang Qianyu, the men’s rugby sevens team and the men’s bridge team.
