Leisure and Cultural Services Department - Community Sports Club BulletinLeisure and Cultural Services Department
Portraits of National Sports Association
The Gymnastics Association of Hong Kong, China
Gymnastics is a sport involving difficult moves where gymnastic athletes always challenge themselves in striving for excellence. With a history dating back to the pre-historic period, a sort of gymnastics, according to the ancient Egyptian records, had been practised by people making such tumbling moves comparable to gymnastics since as early as around 2,000 AD. In the 18th century, modern gymnastics had gained popularity to a certain extent. Founded in 1881, the Federation of European Gymnastics was renamed the Federation of International Gymnastics in 1921, making gymnastics at the forefront of the sports world’s efforts to establish an international federation. Gymnastics was officially listed as a competition event in the first Olympic Games in 1896. It is always a pleasant experience to watch gymnastics performances which perfectly blend artistic and sports elements. Since then, gymnastics had remained in the spotlight in every Olympic Games.
SHEK Wai Hung, Prince of Vault
There are seven major branches in the field of gymnastics, namely artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline gymnastics, acrobatic gymnastics, aerobic gymnastics, popular gymnastics, and parkour.
Artistic gymnastics is divided into six events for men, namely floor, vault, parallel bars, horizontal bar, rings, and pommel horse, and four events for women, namely vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor. |
Rhythmic gymnastics is a sports event performed with bare hands or hand-held light equipment to the accompaniment of music. It is divided into individual and group events. There are currently five types of equipment used in official competitions, namely balls, hoops, ropes, clubs, and ribbons. |
Trampoline gymnastics is divided into individual, team, and double simultaneous events. Athletes stay in the air for a short while with the use of trampolines, during which they make various postures and moves. |
Acrobatic gymnastics competitions are divided into five events, namely men’s pair, women’s pair, mixed pair, women’s group, and men’s group. This type of gymnastic move is featured by static balance modelling and dynamic throwing, both of which require group accomplishment with cooperation among two, three, or four gymnasts. |
Aerobic gymnastics blends aerobic exercise, basic steps and difficult moves, while emphasising the important roles of dynamic strength, static strength, jumping, leaping, balance and flexibility. During the competition, the judges will award scores to the contestant’s moves based on such factors as the artistic level, degree of difficulty, extent of completeness and overall arrangements. |
Popular gymnastics is a non-competitive gymnastics sport recognised by the Federation of International Gymnastics, covering a variety of gymnastic moves, equipment and dance moves suitable for gymnasts of all ages. |
Parkour is a new sport featuring venues equipped with obstacles, walls and railings of various types, in simulation of obstacles in urban areas. Athletes must overcome all obstacles and reach the finishing line by making full use of their skills. |
The Gymnastics Association of Hong Kong, China (the Association) was established on 1 April 2003, following the founding of its predecessor, the Hong Kong Amateur Gymnastics Association, by gymnastics enthusiasts in 1965. Since then, the Association has remained committed to promoting the development of gymnastics in Hong Kong. Dr. FUNG Sai Fu, the chairperson of the Association, expressed that the Association spared no effort in supporting the government to implement its sports development strategy, while actively striving to meet the goals of promoting local gymnastics in the community, supporting elite sports and developing Hong Kong into a prime destination for hosting major gymnastics events. To this end, the Association and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department have jointly held various gymnastics courses across districts such as the regular “Gymnastics Development Program”, and organised major international events, including the “Hong Kong Gymnastics For All Festival”, “National Gymnastics Championship” and “Hong Kong Trampoline International Invitational Tournament”, to enlighten members of the public as to gymnastics. In addition, despite all the challenges during the epidemic, the Association continued to offer training opportunities regarding gymnastics for local coaches and judges, in preparation for the international gymnastics events to be resumed in Hong Kong in future.
As in the past, the Association sets the primary goal of training elite gymnasts for Hong Kong. At present, gymnastics is one of the “Tier-A” high performance sports at the Hong Kong Sports Institute. Over 100 members of the Hong Kong Gymnastics Teams, under training by the Association, have achieved notable successes in major international events over the years.
With years of hard work and dedication, the Association has successfully groomed prestigious gymnasts, including SHEK Wai Hung, the Prince of Vault, NG Kiu Chung, the Prince of Hoops, as well as WONG Hiu Ying, Hong Kong’s first female gymnast. It is worth noting that some of them have even created their own novel gymnastic moves, such as “WONG Hiu Ying’s mount” (180-degree front somersault), “NG Kiu Chung – from or through hanging scale rearways, with straight arms pull to V Cross”, and “NG Kiu Chung 2 – slow roll forward stretched with straight arms through Cross and press to Planche without first going to support”, helping the local gymnasts shoot to fame in the gymnastics world. Looking forward, the Association anticipates that more training opportunities will be offered for budding gymnasts in various categories of gymnastics, with a view to helping them deliver stellar performances in major Asian and international events. On another front, upon completion of the Kai Tak Sports Park project, the Association will actively seek the opportunities to host international gymnastic competitions at the venue on a regular basis, in a bid to allow members of the public greater access to the mesmerising viewing experiences of gymnastics.