The Equestrian Committee (Hong Kong) of Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (the Equestrian Committee) unveiled winners of the Equestrian Events Jumping Fence Design Competition in three categories on April 1, 2007.

These designs will be used as a source of reference in designing the fences for the Jumping Discipline in the Olympic Games Equestrian Event to be held in Hong Kong in August 2008.

The Professional Category winning entry features a favorite dim sum in Chinese tea house [Equestrian 2008]

Jumping is one of the three disciplines in the Olympic Equestrian Event. It requires the rider and the horse to clear a series of 10 to 13 obstacles in the prescribed order. The other two disciplines are Dressage (often described as "horses performing ballet") and Eventing (comprising Jumping, Dressage and Cross-Country).

The winning design in the Professional Category features a bamboo steamer containing dim sum, a favorite delicacy in tea-houses all over China for many centuries. It serves as a common link between Beijing and Hong Kong. And so are the chopsticks that form the horizontal fence. The design was the creation of 22-year-old Mr Yeung Chi-hang, a student in the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

The champion in the Senior Category went to Miss Zhang Shuqi, a 22-year-old student at the Capital University of Economics and Trade in Beijing. Her winning entry, entitled "Flying Horse and Startled Swallow", is a modern expression of two traditional Chinese motifs – the "knife and horse actress" in Peking opera, and five "sandy swallow kites" suggestive of the five Olympic rings. As the Jumping horses leap over the fence decorated by the swallow kites, the action is suggestive of the "horse stepping on a flying swallow", a famous sculpture produced in the Han Dynasty some 2,000 years ago.

The winning entry in the Junior Category, entitled "Hong Kong – the Gourmet's Paradise", was from Miss Leung Hoi-ying, a 15-year-old student from Tuen Mun Catholic School. It features a number of Chinese and Hong Kong motifs, such as bauhinia flowers, a teapot-and-teacup set, a pair of chopsticks, and a bowl of noodles suggestive of longevity.

These entries distinguished themselves from a total of 2,093 entries – 1,740 for the Junior Category for youngsters aged below 16; 270 for the Senior Category for people aged 16 or above, and 83 for the Professional Category for professional designers as well as teachers and students of design academies.

The participants also embraced a diversity of nationalities from all the five continents, fittingly reflecting the global nature of the five Olympic rings and the Beijing Olympic slogan of "One World One Dream".

The top three place-getters in each category received cash prizes of $10,000, $8,000 and $5,000 respectively.