Zhuhai, China – Broadcast gymnastics, a discipline popular across mainland China for decades, is gaining traction in hong Kong as the city prepares to compete in the National Games finals this weekend. Twenty athletes from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) are among the approximately 220 participants converging on Zhuhai for the event.
Eight provincial teams qualified through preliminary rounds, joining co-hosts Guangdong and Hong Kong in the finals. The Hong Kong team, comprised of four men and sixteen women ranging in age from 31 to 60, represents a pioneering effort to establish the sport within the city. While commonplace in mainland China’s schools and workplaces, broadcast gymnastics is a relatively new activity for Hong Kong residents.
“It is indeed very common in mainland China to be applicable in their start of school, and start of work, and then after school, after work,” explained Hong Kong team member Julian Law. “But for us, here in Hong Kong, it’s actually quiet a new sport… And we are the first ones in Hong Kong to be really performing this.”
The sport emphasizes synchronized movements and technical precision, judged on a mark deduction system based on limb angles – deductions increasing with deviations from prescribed positions (straight, 45 degrees, 10 degrees, 15 degrees). Artistic performance, including rhythm and synchronization with music, also contributes to the scoring.
Fellow team member Fiona Liu, who grew up in Xi’an were broadcast gymnastics was a daily school ritual, highlights the sport’s inclusivity. “Some of the professional athletic activities are done under the age of 28, even the age of 25,” Liu said. “But this kind of activity is done throughout all age ranges and all kinds of people.Even if you got hurt in the early years… you can do this kind of sport too.”
Liu hopes Hong Kong schools will adopt broadcast gymnastics to reduce academic stress and build camaraderie, emphasizing participation over competition: “They don’t have to rank first in the game, they just have to take part in it, and to get to know everyone in the class, and to have a way to know everyone in the morning.”