22 Oct 2017 Weekly social issue - athletes in Hong Kong

1.introduction of athlete in HOng KOng

2. problems that athletes are facing

3. what people criticize them

4. my thought

Athletes in Hong Kong used to be a group of people on which the Hong Kong government and the public did not put emphasize as Hong Kong is a city focusing more on financial and logistic industries etc. Recently, athletes in Hong Kong have been focused due to their outstanding performance in international competitions, so they received more business opportunities and to be seen on social media including advertisement and television shows, which arouses the issue of sports and athletes development in Hong Kong again.

Being immersed by traditional Chinese thoughts, studying is what most parents of Hong Kong always encourage their children and other activities such as playing games and sports are regards as waste of time. The reason behind this is that the most of the highly respected jobs in Hong Kong including lawyers, doctors, pilots and so on require to be academic excellence and spending a huge amount of time to study is one of the effective ways to achieve it. However, if not studying hard, most students may only receive jobs which are barely respected. As a result, being athletes as a career is barely encouraged by parents despite teenagers talented in sports, which causes a lack of world-class athletes in Hong Kong. Despite lack of resources of talented athletes development, still Hong Kong achieved outstanding performance on international competitions including snooker, bicycle,  badminton and so on, which creates more business chances for outstanding athletes. Although it could break the traditional thoughts that fortune could not be made by Hong Kong athletes, it results in another criticism again athletes being too focused on business instead of sports.

It is supposed that athletes should focus on their career in sports and prepare themselves to strive for the honor of Hong Kong and the time for preparing other business opportunities, such as advertisement job should not replace their training time. However, given the high frequency that they appear on the social media, the public of Hong Kong may doubt that if they have enough regular practice time. Also, there may be some criticism towards those athletes that they gradually lose the original goal as athletes and become more like stars who focus on financial income. Income is a realistic problem that every person of Hong Kong needs to face no matter who you are. Athletes may need to face various problems that force them to have more money for the future. If daily practice and the performance of athletes are not affected by other activities, they should be free to whatever they are willing.

Athletes of Hong Kong have been receiving more exposure thought social media recently due to their outstanding results in international competitions. This will definitely attract more citizens to pay attention to sports in Hong Kong and encourage more youngsters to find their career in sports activities. Athletes will always be one of the most important group in Hong Kong.