Olympic spirit in Hong Kong: rare torches on show in city for the first time
Mong Kok exhibition boasts more than 30 torches from past Games in a display that runs until the end of August
Hong Kong will play host to five valuable Olympic torches for the very first time, exhibiting them among 30 others at the Pioneer Centre in Mong Kok.
The torches are on loan from Olympic memorabilia collector Chow Kim-hung, who owns 60 of them and more than one million items collected from past Olympic Games.
The five torches, which have never been displayed in Hong Kong until now, are from 1980 (Moscow), 2000 (Sydney), 2008 (Beijing), 2012 (London) and 2014 (Sochi).
Chow, who has been collecting various sports items since he was a child, plans to keep accumulating torches from the Games, including one from Rio de Janeiro next month.
“I’ve been collecting for 50 years now because the Olympic Games is an event that will never fadeand willstay around for forever,” he said.
“It also encourages people from different backgrounds to come together.”
The first item in his proud collection was a torch from the 1980 Olympics.
Chow was joined in Mong Kok yesterday by snooker champion Ng On-yee, Olympic triathlete Daniel Lee Chi-wo and 18 teenagers each representing a district of Hong Kong .
As part of an opening ceremony for the exhibition, they ran the perimeter of the Pioneer Centre, torches in hand, mimicking the tradition of the Olympic flame.
The exhibition will run until the end of August, when the Rio Olympics comes to an end.
