Hong Kong cycling star Lee Sze-wing hits out at ‘pointless training’ after officials axe Asian Championships entry
- Hong Kong cycling chief cites Covid-19 safety fears and ‘more important competitions coming up’ after opting to forego trip to India
- ‘No place is a guarantee you will not get Covid-19,’ the 21-year-old Lee says – ‘we train so hard for competitions, otherwise training is pointless’
Rising star Lee Sze-wing has questioned Hong Kong’s decision not to send a team to the Asian Track Cycling Championships in India over Covid-19 safety fears.
The city had named a squad of 30 cyclists for the New Delhi event between June 18 and 22, including National Games champion Lee, and double Olympic bronze medallist Sarah Lee Wai-sze.
But head coach Shen Jinkang and the city’s Cycling Association decided at a meeting on Monday to withdraw from the event and forego the trip, out of fear their athletes could damage their long-term health by contracting Covid-19.
The decision comes despite Hong Kong’s men’s football team playing Asian Cup qualifiers in the same country this month.
“We know that it is not good for athletes not to be able to compete overseas,” Cycling Association chairman Leung Hung-tak said when asked about the comparison with the city’s footballers.
“But we have more important competitions coming up, including the World Track Championships in October and the postponed Asian Games, and we don’t want our athletes to take a risk in India.
“We have a large team to go, and if one contracted Covid-19, it is easy to transmit to others – we can’t afford it.
“Especially because cardiorespiratory fitness functions are important for cyclists. There may be potential long-term pulmonary sequelae and associated impairment of functional capacity, which could cause significant harm to cyclists once they have contracted Covid-19.”
Leung said the Asian Track Championships were not originally on Hong Kong’s schedule anyway, and that they had only decided to go after the announcement last month that the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games had been postponed.
“We’ve received quite a bit of information that the percentage of people infected in India is not low,” he added.
“We’re concerned about medical support in India for Covid-19 treatment. We can’t put our athletes’ health at risk.
“After consulting with some experts, including Chan Kwok-ki [vice-chairman and head of the association’s training committee], we all agreed not to go.”
According to data from India’s health ministry, over 3,700 new coronavirus infections were reported in New Delhi on Tuesday, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases in India to over 43.2 million.
Lee Sze-wing admitted she felt let down by the governing body’s decision to withdraw from the event because of safety concerns.
“Actually, no place is a guarantee that you will not get Covid-19,” the 21-year-old said. “We train so hard for competitions – otherwise training is pointless.”
Amid strict Covid-19 restrictions in their home city, Hong Kong’s cyclists have not competed at last September’s China National Games in Shaanxi, where they won two gold medals – Lee Sze-wing in the road race, and Sarah Lee in the sprint. There were also bronze medals for Sarah Lee in the keirin, and Leung Ka-yu in the Omnium.
“I was so excited to count down the days until the Asian Championships because it’s been nine months since we’ve had competitions,” said Lee, who began training in Kunming, China, last November with the team.
“After being out of competition for so long, I’m worried that I’m not used to the game and don’t know how to fight,” added Lee, the city’s first rider to win an individual road race since three-time Asian Games champion Wong Kam-po.
The 35-year-old Sarah Lee, who joined the team in early May after spending more than a month quarantined in Shanghai and Kunming, will also be spinning her wheels.
Lee will now turn her attention to July’s final Nations Cup leg in Cali, Colombia.
The Cycling Association has confirmed its riders will also compete in the Japan Track Cup I and II in Izu, and the JICF International Track Cup in Chiba, Japan, over the next two months.
