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The Sport For All Day held by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) yesterday (August 7) attracted over 200 000 people taking part in free recreation programmes at designated venues in the 18 districts and enjoying fee-charging facilities of the department for free. More than 190 000 people participated in the same event last year.
"Close to 177 000 people used our free facilities yesterday. As compared with the figures of last year of about 165 000 people, there was an increase of more than 7 per cent. Hirers have made good use of the booked facilities as over 85 per cent of these booked facilities were taken up by the original hirers, similar to last year's situation. The majority of the booked facilities not taken up by hirers were reallocated to walk-in applicants on a first-come, first-served basis," a spokesman for the LCSD said.
"It was encouraging to witness the exceptionally high usage rate of some of our popular facilities such as sport arenas, billiard tables and American pool tables that day. Their overall usage rate ranged from about 96 per cent to 98 per cent."
Among those making free use of the LCSD's leisure facilities, over 109 000 people enjoyed swimming in the department's swimming pools. That was an increase of more than 10 per cent compared with last year. Ten swimming pools reached their maximum capacity during the peak hours in the afternoon yesterday.
Meanwhile, the free recreational programmes including health talks and exercise demonstrations, fitness corners and parent-child sports programmes, and opportunities for the middle-aged, the elderly and the disabled to play sports, as well as sports demonstrations, held at the LCSD's designated sports centres in 18 districts registered about 26 000 participants. The overall number of participants in the activities was higher than the enrolment quota.
The Sport For All Day this year adopted fitness walking as its main theme with the slogan "Be Smart and Healthy. Let's Take a Brisk Walk Daily". The LCSD set up 33 walking tracks throughout the territory, encouraging people to take up walking exercise regularly as part of their daily life. More than 1 000 people participated in the fitness walking activities held at four designated venues in Ma On Shan Promenade, Hong Kong Park, Po Kong Village Road Park and Tsing Yi Park on that day.
The spokesman said, "It is encouraging to see that members of the public gave active support for the Sport For All Day. We will continue our efforts to promote sport for all, encouraging people to appreciate the benefits of sports activities and to do more exercise on a regular basis for a stronger physique and better health."
Ends/Monday, August 8, 2011
Issued at HKT 19:33
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