India hopes to host 17th Asian Games in Delhi in 2014

Patiala, July 26 (UNI) India is definitely going to get the 17th Asian Games in Delhi in 2014 as it has almost got the winning confidence of majority of member countries of Olympic Council of Asia, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Secretary General Randhir Singh today said.

In a release he said Korea had already played host to the 14th Asian Games in 2002. India had successfully hosted the 11th Asian Games in 1982 and after 32 years, India has every right to host the games.

Randhir Singh, who is also the lone International Olympic Committee executive member from India said since India was already preparing for the Commonwealth Games, which will be held in 2010 in Delhi, things would be in place, before they could take on the challenge to host the 17th Asian games in the national capital. The 15th Asian Games will be held in Doha, Qatar from December one to 15, while the 16th Asian Games have been allotted to China, to be held in Guangzhou from November 12 to 27, 2010.

When asked about the final decision to allot the 2014 Asian games, he said Olympic Council of Asia, the governing body for organisingation of the Asian Games will decide in its 26th General Assembly in Kuwait in July next year.

Randhir Singh, who is also the Secretary General of the OCA said Asian athletes were given adequate exposure and chance to compete in various international competions.

He said the idea of Asian Indoor games was mooted way back in 2001 and first Asian Indoor Games were held in Bangkok in November 2005. The second Asian Indoor games will have 15 different sports to be hosted by Macau from October 26 to November three next year, he added.

On the logic of having separate Indoor games, Randhir Singh said the diversified sport program feature those events that are neither included in the Olympic Games nor in the Asian Games, but have strong TV broadcasting potential and popularity. Moreover the Asian Indoor games will be held after every two years and in odd years when neither Olympics nor Asian games are there.

He said at present we have five regional games being hosted in respective Asian regions like East Asian Games, West Asian Games, South East Asian Games, South Asian games and Central Asian Games which enable even smaller countries to hold the games having lesser budget than the regular Asian games. Like the 10th South Asian games popularly known as SAF games will be held from August 18 to 26 this year at Colombo.

Mr Singh further highlighted the growing importance of Winter games and said the sixth Asian Winter Games will be organised by China at Changchun in January next year. Moreover for the first time the first Asian Beach games will also be held in Bali-Indonesia in 2008.

He was of the opinion that every athlete cannot take part in Olympics and continent games, hence other regional games help him/her in providing enough exposure to come up.

On the philosophy of starting Afro-Asian games concept, organised by IOA under the banner Afro-Asian Games council in Hyderabad-India in 2003, Randhir Singh said it will be rotated on alternate basis between Asian and African nations and second Afro-Asian games will now be held in Algiers, Algeria next year.

He said these games provide another added exposure to athletes from two continents.

Mr Singh was happy with the progress of the 15th Asian games in Doha and said Qatar National Olympic Committee deserve kudos alongwith Doha Asian Games Organising Committee for their commitment in trying to have the best ever Asian games so far.

He hoped the whole of Gulf is likely to benefit with these games being held for the first time in any GCC country.

On the progress of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Mr Singh, who is also the Vice-President of the Commonwealth Games Federation said Delhi was gearing up to make these games help build India a strong sports nation.

He also commented on the India's participation in the 1st Lusofania games involving 12 Portugese spoken countries in Macau later this year. He said Goa in India has strong Portugese community and IOA will send teams for this inaugural games to further promote global cooperation.

He disclosed that 46th OCA Executive committee will meet at Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) on August three and the 47th Executive meeting and the 25th General assembly of OCA will be convened at Doha on November 29 and December two during the 15th Asian Games.

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