As the importance of athletics continues to grow, serving as a source of civic pride and setting an example of individual fitness, the demand grows for improved and more sophisticated training facilities. Steven Chen reports.

Swimmer Gary Wong Chan-yun was only 9 when his father took him for the first time to the South China athletics club. That's when the boy heard the call to become a competitive swimmer. Now 23, Wong recalls he had started out wanting to play football. He talks good-naturedly now about his lost career as a mid-fielder, as he gets ready to represent Hong Kong at the 2011 University Games in August.

"Being a footballer seems very hard to do here in Hong Kong. Besides, long arms and legs are useful if you're a swimmer," says the affable Wong, who trains with the Hong Kong Sports Institute (HKSI) as one of its "elite" athletes.

The 1.8-meter-tall speedster, who is studying economics at Hong Kong University, holds the local record for the 50 meter and 100 meter breast stroke. Wong is considered one of the city's best hopes for a medal at the games. He placed fourth at the 2009 East Asian Games and sixth in the 2010 Asian Games.

While his achievements are notable, Wong is engaged in a constant tug-of-war between the demands of his sport and the demands from his studies which exert daily pressures. He wonders if he is being blocked from achieving even greater heights.

As part of the HKSI program, "I train regularly at the institute or at a swimming center between classes", he says. "When there are no events, I'll train 6 or 7 times a week for two and a half hours a day. But before big events I'll take time off and train every day. Before the Asian Games, I took 6 months off."

While his college is generally supportive of such absences, Wong feels that deferments are "discouraged" if they get too long or become too frequent. But rather than the hard slog required to catch up with course work after taking time off, it's the effect that his studies have on his swimming that worries the athlete the most.

"If I miss training, it affects my performance. If you take even a week off, it takes a month to get your fitness back, so I don't want to take more than a short time off, if I can."

When asked whether all the running around affects his performance, Wong shrugs. "So far I've been doing all right. I've been passing my courses and getting good (sports) results.

But when asked whether he might do even better if he were a full-time athlete, he pauses, as though considering the possibility for the first time. "I suppose so. I'm not sure."

The prospect of trading a timely completion of her studies in exchange for greater sports success certainly intrigues fencer Au Sin-yeung, who says she would be willing to extend her studies by four years if it meant she could win gold in her sport.

The 22-year-old freshman, studying physical education at Baptist University is also gearing up for the games and, like Wong, is one of the city's best hopes for a medal, having come second in the individual saber and third in the team event at last year's Asian Games.

Like Wong, Au balances a busy schedule of sport and studies, with any extra time she has devoted to training.

"At the moment I train for about two and a half hours a day. I could do more, but at the moment, that is enough."

"I'm hoping I can do well at the games, but teams from Europe and US, where fencing is more established, will be the biggest challengers."

Despite their hard work, Hong Kong athletes like Wong and Au are still a big step away from testing such overseas rivals. One of the key reasons for this is the constant tussle between sport and studies, contending for their time, says sports institute head Trisha Leahy.

"The government has now spent HK$1.8 billion to upgrade sports facilities, so everything is in place. What we need now are full time athletes. We have about 600 athletes in our sports program, but only 170 are full-time, when it really should the other way around. That means 75 percent of our athletes are not training enough.

"Athletes should be training full time every day. If they don't they'll never be able to compete at the highest level."

To have a real chance of bagging medals at the biggest sports events, "we need around 500 full-time athletes" says Leahy, a former athlete, veteran sports administrator and now the institute's chief executive, "but that won't happen unless we change the way athletes are educated and supported".

While the city's universities make concessions to accommodate athletes who skip course work and examinations, there are limits and students are expected to catch up promptly.

While there is some flexibility shown towards its athletes, "all students are treated equally," says Vickie Lee, a program coordinator at Baptist University's Department of Physical Education, "students don't do less work because they are athletes".

This emphasis on academic performance, even for athletes, is arguably why some promising high school athletes abandon the Institute when they start university.

"We need a special course structure to suit full-time athletes studying at college - a clear strategy and longer time lines," says Leahy. "They could do a degree course over, say, 10 years. Or it might include teaching them at the Institute. This would allow them to continue training with minimal disruption."

And with tertiary education so important in the city, and places in the city's handful of universities tightly contested, the need to provide a useful post-secondary education is a critical one, especially for athletes who may not be talented academically.

Instead, such athletes "could be trained by us to be a fitness expert, an administrator or an event planner, so that they don't feel abandoned when they retire", she says.

While part of the HKSI's purview is to source job opportunities for life after sport, in reality, a mismatch between sporting prowess and suitable employment has athletes and their families concerned and is arguably discouraging young candidates from entering the field.

Notable achievements in sport have generally come in less "sexy" sports like windsurfing and snooker while Hong Kong remains without a superstar in more in-demand sports like golf and football, meaning post-career jobs as a coach or sports commentator may be harder to come by.

"We need to make sure they have good jobs that pay well. If they are working hard to represent the city, they need to be taken care of."

"The government should systematically implement a long-term study and career support scheme, when young athletes commit to becoming a professionally trained athlete," says Amy Ha, a professor in sports science and chair of the Department of Sports Science and Physical Education at Chinese University.

"When athletes see the prospects of being athletes, they will feel more secure about pursuing a sporting career. The government should provide further study and job opportunities for elite athletes who have contributed much of their time on training and competition."

In Taiwan, which is sending a team of 160 to the Universiade, elite athletes hoping to represent the region are recruited and then trained at the sports training center, managed under the government's sports affairs council.

Athletes will stay at the center from June 1, and train full time ahead of the games, say officials from the Taipei University Sports Federation. Plagued by years of underperformance on the field, the sports federation launched a new initiative over 10 years ago to recruit promising athletes. The most gifted are mentored at the center under a program similar to the HKSI's.

But unlike the SAR, Taiwan also has the "national" Taiwan Sports University, a sports university where students study for undergraduate and graduate degrees in health, physical education and other sports related disciplines, while pursuing their athletic ambitions.

While the Taiwan government is regularly criticized for its inadequate support of athletes, the university has produced results: gold medal winners at the 2002 World Table Tennis Championships, New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming and Yani Tseng, current World No 1 in the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

In Singapore, which is sending around 100 athletes hoping to do well in sailing, swimming and archery, to the games, the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) currently oversees 1,000 mainly part-time athletes. Like Hong Kong's Sports Development Board, the SSC oversees operations of the Singapore Sports Institute, which offers athletes assistance with studies and employment after their sporting careers have ended.

While the city-state has, like the SAR, never been regarded as a sports powerhouse, it has started to take sport more seriously.

In 2008, it launched the Singapore Sports School, a special independent school for athletically gifted high school students, that offers a way for them to prepare and sit for their (Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination comparable) O-levels while playing sport. The qualifications they receive if they pass allows them to enter one of the city's leading colleges, the Republic Polytechnic, where they can pursue undergraduate studies that lead to a job in a sports-related field.

The importance of successfully managing an athlete's sports years, studies and future employment can't be stressed enough, says Leahy.

"An athlete's peak performance covers about 10 years. We need to give them comfort that they can put 10 years into their sport and know that they'll have a future after that. Without full time commitment, we'll never produce athletes than can compete with the world's best."