Happy Birthday to us!
Twenty-seven years ago today, bc magazine debuted on the streets of Hong Kong.
What an amazing experience it has been – highs, lows, depths of despair, top of the world…
A lot of people – staff, friends, advertisers and readers have been involved through the years, thank you for your continued support and strength.
We are HongKongers!
Seventeen-year-old Wong Ting-ting won table tennis bronze, Hong Kong’s first medal at the Tokyo Paralympics.
Competing at her first Paralympics Wong won the first game of her TT11 singles semi-final 11:9 but then lost the next three (5:11, 6:11, 8:11) to 50-year-old defending champion Elena Prokofev.
Images: Hong Kong Paralympic Committee
Rugby League World Cup 2021 (RLWC2021) have confirmed that the men’s, women’s and wheelchair tournaments will now take place in 2022 from 15 October – 19 November.
RLWC2021 also announced that the opening match and the men’s / women’s doubleheader finals will be played, as originally planned, at St James’ Park, Newcastle and Old Trafford, Manchester respectively.
The tournament starts one week earlier than the 2021 dates so that RLWC2021 falls between the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2022 FIFA World Cup this change will allow all 61 games to be televised live.
Tickets for the 2021 tournament will be valid for the same fixture in 2022.
Fast, Femme and Furious
When: 1pm, 4 September, 2021
Where: King’s Park
Tickets: Free
Taiwan will not send a team to next year’s Gay Games in Hong Kong because of fears their athletes and staff could be arrested if they wave the island’s flag or use its name.
The revelation means the only place in Asia to have legalised same-sex marriage will not be at the continent’s first-ever Gay Games.
“We have decided not to send a national delegation as we don’t expect to be able join as Taiwan and to ensure personal safety of the athletes,” Yang Chih-chun, president of the Taiwan Gay Sports and Movement Association (TGSMA), told AFP.
Yang said his organisation, a formal member of the Federation of Gay Games, would assist any Taiwanese player who wanted to attend in a personal capacity.
“But we won’t actively encourage individual participation since there’s no guarantee of a player’s personal safety because under Hong Kong’s national security law, arrests can be made under any excuse,” he said. Yang added that he feared athletes could easily “cross the red line” if they spoke their minds.
In a statement, the Gay Games said it would follow the convention of Taiwan being called either “Chinese Taipei” or “Taiwan region”.
Athletes from Taiwan and the TGSMA were welcome to attend, organisers said, adding: “We are strictly non-partisan and non-political, and we ask all participants and visitors to respect and observe local laws and customs during their stay in Hong Kong.”
additional reporting: AFP
As Hong Kong Tramways celebrated it’s new Guinness World Record – Hong Kong now has the world’s largest double-decker tram fleet, with 165 trams serving over 200,000 passengers every day. Managing Director Cyril Aubin said the tram operator wanted to celebrate the SAR’s Olympic success with the whole city, and announced a free week’s travel.
Aubin said the company had seen the MTR and KMB offer free rides to medallists. “But we thought $2.6 might be a bit offensive to the medallists.”
Nixon Cheung, Head of Commercial & Brand for HK Tramways, said the operator would need government approval for the free week, which he said would “hopefully” come in the last quarter of 2021.
Siobhan Bernadette Haughey won Hong Kong’s first Olympic swimming medal by taking silver in the 200m freestyle at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games – Chapeau!
After making history by becoming the first Hong Kong swimmer to make an Olympic final, Haughey looked set for gold before Australia’s Ariarne Titmus chased her down in the final metres.
“My achievement, coupled with Cheung Ka-long in fencing, can inspire other Hong Kong athletes who are here in Tokyo, and ‘add oil’ to them,” Haughey said after the race.
“I would like to thank my coaches in Hong Kong and the United States, and also my dad and mum, without them I would not be having such an achievement,” added the silver medal winner “Those swimmers back home – continue to train hard and you will be the next.”
This is the first time Hong Kong has won multiple medals at an Olympic games.
updated quotes
What does it say about Hong Kong to the rest of the world when Lam’s administration cannot even provide team shirts to all our Olympic athletes?
Not that you’d know it, but on one of the greatest days of his life, this is Angus Ng in a plain black emblem free shirt competing at the Tokyo Olympics for Hong Kong.
Ng was massively abused online by many pro-Beijing politicians including Nicholas Muk for not being ‘patriotic’. Only for Muk and others to find that they the politicians had made it illegal under the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance (A602) for Ng as an unsponsored athlete to display or wear the Hong Kong emblem unless authorised by Carrie Lam… Who hasn’t (apparently) given permission for all our amazing athletes to wear the Bauhinia.
Beyond sad!
Update: Nicholas Muk’s Facebook page has been apparently been deleted, without an apology made to Ng
