Why Hong Kong could see boom in athletics for veterans who won’t stop competing
City expects to send large team of senior track-and-field competitors to World Masters Athletics Championships in Daegu next year
Hong Kong’s community of “masters” athletes has been tipped to grow after the city brought home bagfuls of medals from the past two global championships.
Colin Whittington, chairman of the Athletics Veterans of Hong Kong, predicted that the number of senior competitors would only continue to rise as the public became more aware of the need to stay fit and healthy as they got older.
Whittington also expected to see the city sending a large team to the next World Masters Athletics Championships (WMAC) in Daegu next year.
WMAC are the biennial championships for masters athletics – aged 35 or above – which is divided into five-year age groups. For example, the M35 group is for male athletes aged 35 to 39 years while the W40 group is for female athletes between the ages of 40 and 44, and so on.
At the latest indoor edition in Gainesville, Florida last month, four Hongkongers – Aldo Kriel, Max Siu Yau-ming, Grace Tong and Ivy Mok Oi-yee – competed, and returned with three medals.
Siu pocketed bronze in the men’s triple jump (70-74) with a 9.48-metre jump while Kriel added two more bronze medals in the men’s 45-to-49 group, crossing the finish line in 23.68 seconds in the 200m and recording a 6.05m leap in the long jump.