China's quadruple winner of Olympic gold for diving - Fu Mingxia - has married Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Antony Leung in a secret ceremony in Hawaii.

Mr Leung, 50, confirmed he wed the 23-year-old diving champion in Honolulu two weeks ago.

I am delighted to confirm I have married Fu Mingxia

Antony Leung, HK Financial Secretary

Hong Kong's newspapers - who reported the clandestine union earlier this week - got around the lack of a public wedding photograph by running old pictures of a grinning Ms Fu clad in a computer-generated wedding dress.

Ms Fu came to worldwide attention 12 days before her 12th birthday when she won gold at the 1990 Goodwill Games, while Mr Leung was a little-known senior banker before he was picked to be Hong Kong's economics chief in early 2001.

She went on to win four Olympic gold medals in the Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney Games, while he is now responsible for financial policy for the more than six-million population of Hong Kong.

Wedding then waiting

Mr Leung was reported to have married his bride during a five-day break earlier this month.

He said: "I am delighted to confirm I have married Fu Mingxia," before asking local media to give them privacy.

There is also speculation about how soon the new Mrs Leung may be able to join her husband in Hong Kong, which maintains border controls with the Chinese mainland.

Correspondents say it is common for Hong Kong men to marry mainland Chinese women but tight immigration rules mean it is also common for the wives to wait for up to a decade before they are allowed to live in the former British colony.