HONG KONG, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Sport Medicine Course 2008 kicked off in Hong Kong on Saturday.

    The two day event with the theme of "Sport Nutrition" is organized by the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China (SF&OC) and funded by the Olympic Solidarity.

    SF&OC has invited a number of overseas and local sport medicine experts to deliver lectures for the course, which is aimed at providing practical and clinical scientific knowledge on sport nutrition for athletes, coaches or other related personnel in order to equip them with necessary awareness and vision.

    At the opening ceremony, Pang Chung, secretary general of SF& OC said that the IOC Medical Commission has always kept the athletes' good health as their primary concern, worrying about their heavy training schedule and load in the face of keen competition at high frequency.

    "The Federation took up the appeal and succeeded in applying the organization the first Sport Medicine Course in Hong Kong," he said.

    Course participants, with a total of 87, were from the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee, 2009 East Asian Games (Hong Kong) Ltd., various National Sports Associations and post secondary institutions.