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| China's flagbearer Lei Sheng leads the Chinese delegation during the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Aug 5, 2016. (Photo/AFP) |
Hours before the start of the ticket sale this morning, thousands of citizens queued up to meet the heroes of Rio 2016 Olympics. Some even waited overnight.
A delegation of mainland gold medalists is slated to give sport demonstrations during a three-day visit to Hong Kong, their first stop when they return home, from Aug 27 to 29.
Tickets for the three public events were up for sale at Hong Kong City Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Sha Tin Town Hall and Tuen Mun Town Hall from 10 am on Monday. Each buy was allowed to have no more than two tickets.
Priced at HK$20 each, the tickets were quickly scalped at popular mainland e-commerce site – Taobao – for up to 1,000 yuan (HK$1,164) for the most popular sports such as ping pong and diving.
Around 9 am, more than 1,000 sports enthusiasts could be seen queuing outside Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Cecilia Wang Yixuan, a postgraduate student at the City University of Hong Kong, started her wait around 5 pm Sunday with nine friends to secure a chance to meet her hero – mainland table tennis gold medalist Zhang Jike. She was lucky!
Twenty one-year-old local Wu Wing-shan is keen to meet her favorite player – table tennis star Ding Ning – for the second time.
She said the demontration would offer Hongkongers citizens a good opportunity to observe first hand the techniques of top-level Chinese athletes.
Also on the popular must-see list is the diving team’s performance.
Sixty-two-year-old Poon Ching-sheung, who took a day’s leave to queue up for the tickets, said she expected to see famous Chinese diver Wu Minxia – a record-setting five-time Olympic diving gold medalist.
For diving enthusiast Francis Lam Hau-kan, 35, female diving gold medalist He Zi is the best.
Events
On Aug 28, a group of athletes will give badminton and table tennis demonstrations at Queen Elizabeth Stadium from 9:30 am to 11:30 am. There will be a diving demontration at Victoria Park Swimming Pool from 10 am to 11:30 am the same day.
A variety show titled ‘A Date with the Mainland Olympic Gold Medalists’ will be held in the afternoon on Aug 28. The public will be able to interact with the athletes at the event.
The delegation will visit the Hong Kong Sports Institute on the last day of their HK leg and share their experience with elite local athletes, before leaving for Macao.
