A bigger splash: Hong Kong’s cross-harbour swimming race expanded despite complaints of overcrowding last year
Organisers allow an extra 500 to take part and introduce new measures to cut congestion at starting point
The entry quota for the annual cross-harbour swimming race has been raised by 500 to 3,000, despite complaints about poor management at last year’s event.
The Hong Kong Amateur Swimming Association assured the public on Tuesday that the New World Harbour Race on October 16 would be handled smoothly despite the extra numbers.
It said it would introduce a range of new measures, including placing a floating pontoon, five metres wide and 30 metres long, at the starting area to ease crowding.
“This year, we will try to relieve the bottleneck by introducing a floating pontoon at the start so people can get out to the harbour easily,” said David Chiu Chin-hung, honorary secretary of the association. “This will create more openings for people to dive in. That will relieve congestion.”
Chiu said the starting point would also be demarcated more clearly in an L-shape, and he reminded swimmers to follow the rules.
