PARIS OLYMPICS: HONG KONG SPRINTER FELIX DIU TO MAKE FINAL CUT AT EXPENSE OF TIFFANY YUE
- The 100-metre specialist would become the third athlete from the city to benefit from the wild card entry
Hong Kong sprinter Felix Diu Chun-hei is expected to become the newest member of the city's Olympic delegation this week, thanks to a universality spot from World Athletics.
Diu's gain would come at the expense of long jumper Tiffany Yue Nga-yan, who has fallen down the world rankings in recent weeks, and is likely to be just below the 32nd spot when Olympic qualification closes on Sunday.
The 100-metre specialist would become the third athlete from the city to benefit from the wild card entry, after long jumper Theo Chan Ming-tai, who competed in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and 110m hurdler Arenas Chan Chung-wang, who ran at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
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Racewalker Ching Siu-nga and distance runner Christy Yiu Kit-ching qualified via their world rankings in 2021 and 2016, respectively.
Olympic qualification for the 100m is 10.00 seconds, with Diu's fastest time of the year 10.33. On Friday, Kishane Thompson ran a world-leading 9.77 to win the 100m at the Jamaican Olympic trials.
Kwan Kee, president of the Hong Kong Association of Athletics Affiliates (HKAAA), said Diu was expected to be allocated the place in Paris, unless Yue's circumstances changed over the next two days.
With the city's athletes hardly setting the world alight on the track, Kwan defended sending a representative to the French capital who had not qualified.
"Our athletes had been working hard; we have a few sprinters and long jumpers flirting with the Games qualifications," he said. "Tiffany Yue is a bronze medallist at the Asian Games and Theo Chan's results are not bad.
"The universality spot is still an official, valid way to go to the Games, I felt honoured no matter how it came about."
For weeks it appeared as though Yue would be adding a Games appearance to her success in Hangzhou last year, but the 26-year-old has been unable to recapture the form that won her bronze.
The 26-year-old has dropped out of the last eligible spot in world rankings, first overtaken by Maja Askag of Sweden, then Cypriot Filippa Kviten and Petra Banhidi-Farkas of Hungary.
Yue's only hope is that like Jazmin Sawyers of Great Britain, who had to withdraw from the Games because of an Achilles' injury, others opt not to go to Paris.
"The cut-off date is Sunday, but the name list will be announced on July 2," the city's record holder, who managed 6.50 metres jump in Hangzhou last October, said. "Most likely the list will be finalised by then, and we'll know if anyone is pulling out or all nominations are accepted."
Diu remains the fastest man in the city this year after clocking a personal best at the Hong Kong Athletics Championships in May, and while the 24-year-old's best time is somewhat off the entry standard, his time would have left him ahead of 15 sprinters at the Tokyo Games.
In recent Games, universality spots cannot be used in the combined events such as men's decathlon and women's heptathlon, 10,000 metres, or the 3,000-metre steeplechase.
The Paris Games, however, only allowed universality spots to be spent on three events, namely 100 metres, 800 metres, or the marathon.
"Perhaps it would be better if the event scope [for universality spot] is larger than it is now," Kwan said. "But it was the World Athletics who set the rules and criteria.
"We just obliged by it, do our part to submit the results, and have them endorsed by the Olympic Committee [SF&OC]."
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
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2024-06-30T22:46:39Z dg43tfdfdgfd
