Action kicks off at midnight, with reigning women’s champ looking to win for third year in a row
Nine men and three women will face off in their respective divisions in the Hong Kong Bun Scrambling Competition finals at midnight on Tuesday.
This year’s selected finalists include veteran climbers Tam Kam-chau, who achieved the fastest time of 43.59 seconds in the men’s division qualifying heats, and firefighter and Cheung Chau resident Jason Kwok Ka-ming, who tailed Tam by exactly 2 seconds.
They will compete against finalists Kwok Chi-wai, Tam Kin-hung, Samuel Wong Kam-man, Chung Ching-man, Cheung Yuk-chuen, Cheung Man-cheung and Wong Tsz-kiu, who clocked in at between 50 and 58.6 seconds.
In the women’s division, fan favourite and reigning champion Angel Wong Ka-yan was the fastest at 49.06 seconds. She will face off against two others – professional climber Wu Wing-yu and young entrant Kung Tsz-shan, who qualified with times of 62.3 seconds and 57.02 seconds respectively.
Wong, a climbing instructor, will nab the coveted “Queen of Queens” trophy if she manages to win for the third consecutive year.
Contestants must scramble up a 14-metre bun tower and bag as many replica buns for as many points as they can in three minutes. Buns placed high on the tower are worth more points than those lower down.
Wong won last year’s contest with 603 points and Kwok won with 927.
The competition, which has its roots in a ritual started in 1894 to appease the spirits of islanders killed in a plague, was revived in 2005. The event had been banned for 27 years prior to that after two towers collapsed mid-race in 1978, injuring 24 people.
Major changes made to the competition since include using steel frames instead of bamboo, and plastic buns in place of real, steamed ones.
In line with tradition, the race begins at the stroke of midnight at the Pak Tai Temple Playground soccer pitch, about 500m from the ferry pier.
Ten teams from Macau, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Cheung Chau organisations will also compete in an invitational relay after the main event.
Distribution of free admission tickets started at 10pm, but queues had started forming earlier. Each person could get one ticket on a first-come, first-served basis.
Four spectator zones had been set up to accommodate 1,650 people. Ferry operator New World First Ferry was running extended services from the island.
As of 9pm, 38,000 passengers had travelled between Central and Cheung Chau piers.
