Since the beginning of 2 1 century, the International Olympic Committee has implemented a drastic "slimming" reform for the Olympic Games, but the scale of the three Asian Games held in the same period has been expanding. On the basis of the record of the last Doha Asian Games, the events of Guangzhou Asian Games added 3 major events and 53 minor events. As Xiao Weili, member of China and Macau of the Olympic Council of Asia, said in an interview today, the huge scale of the Asian Games has brought difficulties to Asian small and medium-sized countries in hosting the Asian Games. Even countries and regions with highly developed economies are under great pressure to host the Asian Games.
The call for "slimming" for the Asian Games appeared long before the Doha Asian Games in 2006, but it is not easy to really implement the "slimming action". Both Doha and Guangzhou are willing to host the biggest Asian Games in history. As organizers, they are willing to increase, not decrease, the number of activities, although they are faced with challenges of larger scale and more difficult organization.
The scale of the contest is huge, which has caused unprecedented pressure on the organizers in terms of security, transportation and accommodation. Due to the large scale of the competition, the design capacity of the athletes' village of Doha Asian Games cannot meet the demand, and some delegation members can only be temporarily arranged to live on several cruise ships.
The huge scale of the Games has also led to the entry of some events with poor appreciation or very unpopular for the host country into the Asian Games, which has an impact on the overall quality of the Games.
Xiao Weili said that based on the above considerations, the OCA finally decided to implement the new "28+7" project setting method from the 20 14 Incheon Asian Games, that is, 28 Olympic events are permanent events of the Asian Games, and the remaining 7 non-Olympic events are temporary events that can be adjusted for each Asian Games. In the future, the scale of the Asian Games will be limited to 35 events, and the scale of each Asian Games will not be expanded as it is now.
However, for the OCA, the "slimming" of the Asian Games does not mean giving up those reduced projects. Ahmad Fahd Al-Sabah, president of the Olympic Council of Asia, said at the regular press conference of the Guangzhou Asian Games today that the Olympic Council of Asia has created new sports forms such as Asian indoor games, beach games and youth games in recent years, and the existence of these games basically ensures that any events adjusted by the Asian Games will have a new platform to use.
The newly established sports games have different styles, but the most important thing is that because the scale of these sports games is much smaller than that of the Asian Games, the budget of the organizers can be greatly reduced. Ahmad Fahd Al-Sabah believes that due to the diversity of sports competitions, any country or region in Asia can hold competitions according to its own ability.
At present, there are 1 1 intercontinental sports games in Asia, which is the continent with the largest variety of sports games. Indoor sports games and beach sports games are unheard of in other continents. Ahmad Fahd Al-Sabah said that a wide variety of competitions can provide more opportunities for Asian youth and athletes, because many Asian athletes cannot participate in the Olympic Games, but they can participate in the Asian Games or other Asian Games.
However, these newly established sports games are far less influential than the Asian Games because of their low attention. For the host city, the commercial and social benefits of hosting these events are also very limited. Xiao Weili said: "Unlike the bidding system for the Asian Games and the Asian Winter Games, the Asian Indoor Games and Beach Games are held in turn, and the OCA will negotiate with relevant countries and regions to determine the host city."
But in fact, the problem faced by many economically underdeveloped countries and small and medium-sized countries in Asia is not that their athletes lack the opportunity to participate in the competition, but that it is difficult for them to even obtain the qualification to participate in the competition. These countries and regions are unable to develop sports because of economic poverty, or it is difficult to create better training conditions for potential athletes because of the low level of competitive sports.
At this Asian Games, when the China delegation won the1000th Asian Games gold medal and the Japanese delegation was about to win the 2500th Asian Games medal, Palestinian, Yemeni, Bhutan, Laos, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and Cambodia 1 1 countries and regions had not yet won Asian Games medals. The huge gap in the level of sports development between Asian countries and regions is more serious than the negative impact brought by the huge scale of the Asian Games.
It has become the responsibility of OCA and Asian sports powers to help small sports countries improve their competitiveness in the Asian Games. In this regard, Zheng Runxuan, head of the public relations department of the Incheon Asian Games Organizing Committee, said in an exclusive interview with reporters today: "We no longer aim at hosting the largest Asian Games, but leave a legacy in helping Asian sports underdeveloped countries by hosting the Asian Games. The Incheon Asian Games Organizing Committee allocated 20 million US dollars from the competition budget to set up a fund to improve the training conditions and teacher training in Asian sports underdeveloped countries. "
It is this concept of "helping the weak" that played a key role in Incheon's victory over New Delhi in winning the right to host the 20 14 Asian Games. The support of most members of the Olympic Council of Asia for Incheon also shows Asia's strong desire to change the weak position of sports in small and medium-sized countries and some regions.