News

About 120 coaches were honoured at the 2012 Hongkong Bank Foundation (HBF) Coaching Awards Presentation Ceremony today in recognition of their hard work and effort in coaching Hong Kong’s athletes to achieve excellent results at the international sporting arena, as well as in developing the sport in the community last year.

Organised by the Hong Kong Coaching Committee (HKCC) and funded by the HBF since 1993, the annual HBF Coaching Awards is the only territory-wide programme to commend the achievements of local coaches from the community to elite levels in nurturing athletes and promoting the sports development in Hong Kong. This year the officiating guests included The Hon Mrs Carrie Lam, GBS, JP, Chief Secretary for Administration; Mr Pang Chung, SBS, BBS, Hon. Secretary General of the Sports Federation & Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China (SF&OC); Dr James Lam, JP, Board of Director of the Hong Kong Sports Institute (HKSI) and Chairman of Coaching Awards Sub-committee; Professor Frank Fu, MH, JP, Chairman of the HKCC and Ms Kathy Wong, Secretary of the Advisory Committee of the Hongkong Bank Foundation.

At the opening, Professor Frank Fu congratulated the coaches, saying, “Hong Kong athletes achieved excellent results in the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games last year winning 13 medals in total. The achievements and success of the athletes demonstrated the great efforts of coaches who work tirelessly behind the scene.”  He also took the opportunity to thank the Government for its support to the Awards, the HBF for its generous funding to the Coach Education Programme for the past two decades, as well as the National Sports Associations for their contribution and cooperation in raising the level of coach education and the profile of coaches.

Ms Kathy Wong of the HBF said, “HSBC has been involved with the Hong Kong Sports Institute and the Hong Kong Coach Education Programme for a long time. At last count, more than 80,000 coaches at all levels and in all sports have benefited from the Coach Education Programme. In this, the 20^th year of handing out Coaching Awards, we are pleased to see the Coach Education Programme continuing to go from strength to strength.”

The 2012 HBF Coaching Awards was presented in five categories, namely Coach of the Year Awards, Distinguished Services Award for Coaching, Best Team Sport Coach Award, Coaching Excellence Awards and Community Coach Recognition Awards.

Four coaches were named Coach of the Year, including cycling coach Shen Jinkang for the individual sport in the senior athletes category, and wheelchair fencing coach Wang Ruiji for the team event of the same category. In the junior athletes category, wushu coach Wong Chi-kwong was awarded for individual sport whilst badminton coach Tim He for team event.

Winning the award in the same category for the sixth time, cycling coach Shen Jinkang has nurtured many world-class athletes, including Wong Kam-po, Lee Wai-sze, Kwok Ho-ting, Chan Chun-hing and Wong Wan-yiu, to attain soaring results at national and international competitions throughout his 19 years of coaching in the Hong Kong team.   The winning of women’s Keirin bronze medal by Lee Wai-sze at the 2012 Olympics was one of Shen’s highlights in his coaching career.  Shen was named Distinguished Services Award for Coaching last year.

Having won Coach of the Year Award for three times in the senior and junior, team and individual category, wheelchair fencing coach Wang Ruiji clinched the award for the fourth time this year for leading the team to win a men’s foil team bronze and a women’s epee team bronze at the 2012 Paralympics. Wang was also given Distinguished Services Award for Coaching in 2005.

In the junior athletes, individual sport category, wushu coach Wong Chi-kwong led four up-and-coming athletes to win 2 golds and 5 silvers and a bronze at the 4^th World Junior Wushu Championships.  This was Wong’s fourth time to have won this award.

Shared the limelight with other award winners, badminton coach Tim He also led two promising junior athletes to win the men’s doubles gold medal at the 2012 World Junior Championships.

Distinguished Services Award for Coaching was awarded to gymnastics coach Poon King-hung in recognition of his on-going service and long-term commitment to the sport.  Poon has served as the artistic gymnastics coach of the Gymnastics Association of Hong Kong since 2000 and taken part in a judge role in major international events for 20 years.  He has nurtured a number of outstanding athletes of which Wong Hiu-ying, Shek Wai-hung and Ng Kiu-chung have achieved outstanding results at numerous national and international events such as the 2009 World University Games, 2010 Asian Games, 2011 World Championships, 2012 Asian Championships, etc.  Last year, Hong Kong team attained its eligibility at the 2012 Olympics - a breakthrough in the gymnastics history in Hong Kong.

For the third year in a row, rugby coach Dai Rees took home the Best Team Sport Coach Award with a solid performance of the Hong Kong rugby sevens squad winning the silver and the gold medal at the 2012 Asian Sevens Series in Singapore and Mumbai respectively.

The Coaching Excellence Awards were presented to more than 80 coaches who led an athlete or a team to achieve outstanding performance at many major international competitions in 2012 while 27 coaches were presented with the Community Coach Recognition Awards for having made a special contribution to the coaching of athletes and teams in the community for a period of not less than three consecutive years.

The HKCC, a joint committee of the SF&OC and the HKSI, was established in 1991 with aims of formulating and implementing short-term and long-term strategies for the development of coach education and accreditation programmes in Hong Kong.  The Hong Kong Coach Education Programme has been funded by the HBF with a total commitment of more than HK$26 million since 1992.  Throughout the years, over 80,000 coaches have benefited from the training and recognition programmes in the Programme.

For the List of Recipients for the 2012 Hongkong Bank Foundation Coaching Awards, please click here. For the past recipients, please click here.