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About 200 primary school students used well-choreographed movements to bring 13 dragons to life in the 2006 Inter-school Easy Sport Dragon Dance Competition at the Lai Chi Kok Park Sports Centre today (March 4).
The competition was co-organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the Hong Kong Chinese Martial Arts Association with assistance from the Education and Manpower Bureau under the School Sports Programme.
The "easy sport" dragon dance teams were made up of boys and girls from primary 5 and primary 6.
Although they manoeuvred dragons lighter than the traditional full-sized versions and their dances were shorter and accompanied by recorded instead of live music, the young dragon dancers displayed all the grace, vigour and discipline expected of participants in this age-old sport.
The championship was won by STFA Wu Siu Kui Memorial Primary School (PM). The first runner-up was KYT Excel Foundation Primary School and the second runner-up was Yan Tak Catholic Primary School.
The Easy Sport Scheme, a subsidiary scheme of the School Sports Programme launched in 2001, is aimed at making sports more accessible and enjoyable to primary school students by modifying games rules, skills and equipment to suit the physique and learning ability of youngsters.
The Easy Sport Dragon Dance Competition is an activity organised for students who had been trained in the sport under the scheme.
Other activities of Easy Sport include athletics, dancesport, rhythmic gymnastics, badminton, shuttlecock, fencing, squash, table tennis, tennis, cycling, canoeing, orienteering, sport climbing, aquathlon, baseball, basketball, cricket, handball, netball, rugby and volleyball.
The School Sports Programme, funded by the department, is organised by various National Sports Associations with assistance from the Education and Manpower Bureau, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University.
The programme offers secondary, primary and special schools a wide variety of sports activities, including coaching, demonstrations, talks, sports captain training and visits to sports facilities.
It has developed successfully into a platform for the promotion of sports in schools. Last year, it staged more than 7,000 activities with attendance of more than 500,000 students, and the number of participating schools increased from about 800 to more than 900.
Ends/Saturday, March 4, 2006
Issued at HKT 15:32
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