Praise for the 35-strong team has come both from officials in mainland China, and Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who sent his “heartfelt congratulations”.

“Every athlete has given their all and unleashed their full potential. Regardless of the results, all exhibited determination, perseverance and professionalism,” Lee said.

Paris also came on the back of a historic performance at the Asian Games last October, where Hong Kong’s athletes won 53 medals, including eight gold and 16 silver.

But the three medal winners aside, only table tennis duo Doo Hoi-kem and Wong Chun-ting, who lost the bronze medal match of the mixed doubles, and Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet, who reached the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles in badminton, came close to success in France.

For the rest, achievements were limited to making their Olympic debuts, as was the case for the likes of triathlete Jason Ng Tai-long and badminton singles player Lee Cheuk-yiu, who respectively did not finish his race and crashed out tearfully in the early rounds.

Another debutant was cyclist Ceci Lee Sze-wing, who sobbed her way through an interview on Sunday when she admitted “I don’t know what I was doing out there” after a particularly disappointing performance on the track.

Lee Cheuk-yiu, too, confessed to being “up and down emotionally” and said he needed to address weakness and consistency issues.

And once again, Hong Kong required a special invite to send a track athlete, with Felix Diu Chun-hei failing to make it out of his men’s 100 metres heat, while it was left to the 32-year-old Shek Wai-hung to carry the flag in gymnastics.

Of the 10 Olympic medals won across Tokyo and Paris, seven belong to Haughey, Kong – who has decided to “take a break” – and Cheung Ka-long. None appears to have a natural successor within the group that competed in the French capital.

Ahead of Sunday’s closing ceremony, chef de mission Brian Stevenson declined to do any press interviews on what the plan for the next four years looked like, saying he wanted the focus to be “on the athletes”, before heading to the Stade de France to take pictures with flag-bearers Ceci Lee and Lo Wai-fung.

At last year’s Asian Games, Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, a vice-president at the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong China, who was the chef de mission in Hangzhou, also avoided questions about the obvious gaps in the city’s sporting talent.

Chief among those concerned a gymnastics programme that has not produced an elite athlete in a decade, an athletics association with similar achievements, and a swimming association that has relied heavily on Haughey’s talent to see it through.

A review that reportedly took place last December into the Asian Games was not released to the public because Trisha Leahy, the then Hong Kong Sports Institute CEO, claimed it was beyond the average person’s understanding.

And a spokesman for the institute previously said it would not comment on performance in Hangzhou as a whole, but said its scholarship athletes winning 51 of the 53 medals proved “our direction and strategy are on track”.

In the past week, Leahy’s replacement, Tony Choi Yuk-kwan, said he “regretfully” could not answer questions on how his organisation proposed to help athletes be more successful in 2028, saying it was up to individual sport associations to provide answers.

Sports commissioner Sam Wong Tak-sum, meanwhile, has been in the role for more than a year, and has yet to fully discuss his job in any great depth.

On Sunday, when the city’s leader congratulated Hong Kong’s athletes, he also expressed confidence for their future success and highlighted the HK$941.6 million (US$120.7 million) given to the institute for the 2024-25 financial year.

The estimated expenditure on sports development in 2024-25 would be around HK$7.9 billion, which was more than doubled compared with a decade ago, he added.

Choi, when first declining to answer questions in May over the gaps in the development and talent identification of athletes, also pointed the finger at the city’s sports associations, while an HKSI spokesman said its job was to be “the government’s elite sport training systems delivery agent”.

“Athletes’ development pathway typically begins with the feeder system and training programmes provided by respective National Sports Associations,” the spokesman said in an email.

“Under their recommendations, young sports talents may become HKSI Scholarship Athletes. Please contact the National Sports Associations for more information.”

The Post contacted the gymnastics association and athletics association on Tuesday for comment. Gymnastics officials asked for some time to reply, while there was no response from the athletics governing body.

Professor Patrick Lau Wing-chung, of Baptist University’s department of exercise and public health, said improvement was needed in the relationship between sports associations, who were not “doing the same thing at the same pace”, and the HKSI.

“In the past, not all national sports associations have really emphasised the cooperation relationship with HKSI,” he said. “I would say we need to further strengthen and intensify the relationship between the talent identification unit in HKSI and individual sport associations.”

The criteria for sports to receive HKSI funding are largely unchanged since 2005, bar an expansion to three funding tiers in 2013. The government’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau has previously told the Post the system had been reviewed after every Olympics.

At the time, it declined to discuss whether the criteria were still fit for purpose.

Lau said he believed the government should have a five-year plan, that was renewed every five years, so there were “very detailed plans to develop the ladder” and keep the “successful trajectory”.

But he also suggested it was time for Hong Kong to move away from traditional sports, such as track and field.

“If you want to be better, we need to look into those new and young sports like skateboarding and sport climbing,” he said. “We should be smart enough and not do the things that the Westerners dominate.”