Page 14 - Sphere No.13 (Dec 2004)

A fully fledged member of both
the Hong Kong Amateur Athletic
Association and the government’s
Community Sports Club, WAC
has successfully nurtured a number of
elite athletes to an impressively
high level.
Besides Daniel Lee, brilliant WAC
athletic stars include long-distance
runner Maggie Chan Man Yee, 28, who
holds the Hong Kong record for the
women’s 1,500m, 3,000m, 5,000m, mile,
10km, half-marathon and marathon.
She qualified for this year’s Athens
Olympics, but unfortunately fractured
her leg before the Games and was forced
to withdraw.
Another club athlete, Tang Hon Sing
who competed in the Sydney Olympics
and is the Hong Kong Men’s 110m
Hurdles and 400m Hurdles record-
holder, agrees that without the WAC
sponsorship he would never have
reached such dizzy heights.
Watsons adopted the talented athlete
straight from school and he now finds
time to train in tandem with an admin-
istrative post within the club – one of
just five employees who run it.
“Hong Kong does not focus so much
on sports, so it’s difficult to compete and
earn a living at the same time,” says Tang.
“The club’s support was vital to me.”
Over his eight-year career, Tang has
repaid the WAC’s faith in him by
breaking Hong Kong’s 110m hurdles
record no fewer than seven times and
was last year named “Star of the Stars” in
the Hong Kong Amateur Athletic
Association’s “2003 Athlete of the
Year” award.
Tang hopes to complete a decade of
competition over the next two years at
the Asian and all China Games. “I’m sure
I can break my record again,” he says.
Other stars nurtured by the WAC
have included Men’s 400m and 800m
record-holder Leung Tat Wai and
Chang Yu Ho, record-holder in the
Men’s High Jump and Decathlon. The
club has also found and trained more
than 50 distinguished juniors
identified from the All Hong Kong
Inter-District Primar y Schools
Athletics Competitions.
From this Junior Elite Training
Programme, the club now hopes to
find its next generation of international
contenders, and Tsui
describes the progress of
some 200 youngsters in
training as “a true highlight of A.S.
Watson’s sports initiative”.
Launched with supporting sponsorship
from the group’s supermarket arm
PARKnSHOP and consumer-electronics
chain Fortress, the programme trains
potentially outstanding athletes starting
with the 8-11 age group. Since being
launched in 2001, it has already
C O M M U N I T Y
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