As one of the city’s sporting poster boys, Max Denmark has embraced the “grand scale” of next month’s National Games, and is relishing the prospect of watching his mainland sprinting idols duelling for gold.
Before he can turn his gaze to the Guangdong Olympic Stadium, however, the Hong Kong rugby sevens flier will focus on the “tough and interesting challenge” that awaits his team over three days at Kai Tak Stadium.
Denmark has two Asian Games gold medals, from 2018 and 2023, but this year marks the city team’s first National Games since 2013. They are in a pool with Shandong, Inner Mongolia and Tianjin.
“The competition will interesting for us, we’ve played a combination of Shandong and Beijing quite regularly, but we don’t know about the skill levels or physicality of the other teams, which is a challenge,” Denmark said.
The 26-year-old expected Games matches that will last 18 minutes, because organisers have mandated nine minutes a half rather than the normal seven, to provide a point of tactical intrigue.
“The fatigue will be crazy at the end of each half,” he said. “We don’t know the size of the squads yet … there could be two players having to play the whole games, so we’ll be looking for weaknesses in them.”