Diving superstar Quan Hongchan and controversial record-breaking swimmer Pan Zhanle will be among 65 mainland Chinese Olympians from the Paris Games visiting Hong Kong next week following their triumph.
The athletes and eight coaches represent 16 different sporting events, including table tennis, swimming, diving, gymnastics and weightlifting, the government revealed on Friday.
The three-day visit starting on August 29 will see the group participate in three public events.
The first is the Mainland Olympians Gala Show at Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Wan Chai on August 30, and two events: Sports Demonstrations by Mainland Olympians held at the stadium and the Victoria Park Swimming Pool in the morning on August 31.
Other athletes arriving in Hong Kong for the three-day visit include table tennis legend Ma Long, swimmer Zhang Yufei and newly engaged badminton player Huang Yaqiong.
Huang went viral after fellow badminton player Liu Yuchen proposed to her after she won her mixed doubles final in Paris.
Many of the athletes achieved stellar results at the Games. Quan won gold in the women’s 10m platform and women’s synchronised 10m platform event. Chen Yiwen won gold in the women’s 3m springboard and the women’s synchronised 3m springboard event.
In table tennis, members of the delegation include four-time Olympic gold medallist Ma and men’s singles champion Fan Zhendong. They are joined by the sport’s top ranked female players, Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng.
Residents will also have a chance to see Pan, who broke his own world record in the men’s 100 metres freestyle event and took home two gold medals in Paris. The result was marred by controversy after Australian commentator and coach Brett Hawke said his victory was “not humanly possible”.
Fellow swimmer Zhang, also known as the “butterfly queen” on the mainland, will also visit the city after taking home five bronze medals and one silver in Paris. She was one of the 23 swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, before being cleared of wrongdoing.
Also joining the delegation will be Huang, who won gold with teammate Zheng Siwei.
The visit follows a similar one after the Tokyo Games in 2021, where the national team visited Hong Kong for three days in December, treating residents to displays of skills in badminton, fencing, gymnastics, table tennis, diving and swimming.
Athletes visiting that year included table tennis player Ma, épéeist Sun Yiwen and sprinter Su Bingtian.
All 5,300 tickets to the three events sold out within 35 minutes on Thursday.
More than 37,000 people joined the online queue at 10am in a bid to get tickets to badminton, gymnastics and table tennis demonstrations by the Olympic stars.
The queue for the swimming and diving demonstrations was not much smaller, with more than 34,000 people waiting online.
Both queues had waiting times that exceeded two hours.
More than 12,000 people queued for tickets to the gala show, incurring an estimated waiting time of 55 minutes.
