Hong Kong’s swimming governing body has announced it would allow a nine-year-old swimmer to join the 2024 swimming championships, after his denial sparked criticism about competition qualification rules.
The development came a week after Alex Fong, a former national swimmer and actor, called the Hong Kong China Swimming Association “indifferent” towards young, promising swimmers. He said in a Facebook post that a young swimmer from his swimming club RippleFly Swim was previously barred from participating in the 2024 championships, even though he had met the qualifying time for championships,
The body said the swimmer’s swimming club was a “competition member” – the lowest of three member rankings – and thus not qualified to participate in championships.
In a statement published on Saturday, the Hong Kong China Swimming Association said it had decided to allow the nine-year-old swimmer to join the championships under his individual name.
“In the future, if there are any swimmers from competition members who [meet the] qualifying times [requirements], they can submit a written application to our association. The executive committee will consider each case individually based on the same principles,” the swimming governing body said in the Chinese statement.
The Hong Kong China Swimming Association, however, did not promise any changes to its regulations despite backlash concerning competition qualification rules.
According to the association’s rules, there are three rankings of swimming clubs – the highest being full members, observatory members and the lowest-ranked competition members. Only swimmers of full members and observatory members are qualified to join championships.
‘Zombie members’
In response, the former national swimmer Fong said he was happy that the nine-year-old could join the championships, but added that he wished the association would make changes to the system.
“My original intention was not only to help swimmers of my club. What I hope is that all swimmers who reach qualifying times can participate in competitions. I hope the rules can be further improved,” Fong said to HKFP in a written Chinese response on Sunday.
“As the incident developed, I believe the public has been made aware that there is unfairness and loopholes in the ranking systems of the swimming clubs, which has affected the allocation of resources among them,” Fong said.
He added that he would meet with representatives of the swimming association for further discussion this Wednesday.
Adrian Ho, a pro-establishment lawmaker from the New People’s Party, told Ming Pao on Friday that some full-member swimming clubs had been inactive over the past two to three years, calling those members “zombie members.”
Ho said the swimming association should provide a mechanism for those inactive members to withdraw to make room for newer and more active associations to send qualified swimmers to compete in championships.
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