Asia's impoverished Olympic committees will benefit from two new regional tournaments the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) plans to introduce over the next 12 months, its president said earlier this week.
Asian performers at 2006 Doha Asian Games. |
The inaugural Asian Beach Games, set for Oct 18-26 in Bali, and an Asian or Afro-Asian Martial Arts Games scheduled for next year, will be the fourth and fifth officially sanctioned multi-sport Games to come out of Asia - after the Asian Games, the Winter Asian Games and the Indoor Asian Games.
Part of their attraction lies in their appeal to sponsors and the trickle-down effect this will create, said OCA President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah.
"We are helping the under-developed national Olympic committees with very good programs, and we believe these will be very attractive to sponsors," he said on the sidelines of this week's general assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) in Beijing.
The OCA will soon have a hand in some 20 tournaments overall, he said, as Asia's sports scene continues to grow.
"We have already started 80 percent of those Games, and they are very successful," said Ahmad, who is a member of Kuwait's royal family and president of the Asian Handball Federation.
"When it is finished, (the OCA's base in Kuwait) will be the biggest sports headquarters ever in the sports movement, and our per-quarter income will be more than our Games," he said.
Similar to how the Persian Gulf has become a magnet for skyscraper-sized dreams in recent years, the OCA is bent on constructing a new sporting landscape across Asia.
Singapore will stage the inaugural World Youth Olympics in 2010, while China, host of last year's Winter Asian Games, aims to maintain a high profile in the development of regional sports. Shanghai welcomes the Asian X Games later this month and Guangzhou will host the Asian Games in 2010.
