Lankans concentrating mostly on medal events
Sri Lanka is gearing up to take part successively for the 17th occasion in the forthcoming Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea but so far the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Sri Lanka has not given the final figure of the touring contingent. However reports state 82 athletes and 29 officials will represent Sri Lanka at the Games.
The number of participating athletes became a debating point after Sri Lanka sent a contingent of nearly 150 – over 100 athletes and nearly 50 officials – for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Sri Lanka returned with a solitary silver medal from Glasgow. Last time when the Games were held in Guanzou, China, Sri Lanka sent 104 athletes who competed in 24 different sports and returned empty handed.
The main stadium in Incheon is all ready for the 17th Asian Games
The Minister of Sports, Mahindananda Aluthgamage and top officials connected to sports in the country were highly concerned about the expenditure the government had to incur for investments in such tours sans success. Despite sports officials claiming that international events, such as the Commonwealth Games, were identified as potential avenues for exposure to athletes; experts were also of the view that in certain sports the selections were made poorly.
After the Sri Lanka contingent returned from Glasgow, Minister Aluthgamage held discussions with officials of sports governing bodies and introduced qualifying standards. Eventually track and field events were highly effected by this move.
For Incheon the Sri Lanka touring contingent is likely to exceed 100 with many of the athletes being members of cricket, hockey and rugby teams. But after taking many points into consideration top sports officials have decided to stick with medal prospective sports. Sri Lanka has taken part in all the editions of Asian Games since its inaugural in 1951 in New Delhi, India.
Besides the 28 Olympic sports, the 17th Asian Games will have eight new sports including baseball, Twenty20 cricket, kabaddi, karate, squash and wushu.
Incheon Games, organised by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will feature over 5000 athletes from 45 different countries with 439 events to be held under 36 sports disciplines. The Games will be held over 16 days and will come to an end on October 4.
Korea has built 10 new fully fledged stadiums for the Asian Games into its fleet of 97 stadiums. Out of the total 49 stadiums will be used to hold events while the remaining 48 will be used as training or practice venues for the visiting teams. The main stadium, which is the Incheon Asiad Main Stadium, has the ability to house nearly 65000 spectators at a sitting.
The South Korean government will bare 19% of the total budget while 78.9% of the remaining amount will be taken care of the Incheon regional government. The rest of the expenditure will be provided by the OCA. From the total budget US$ 1.39 billion has been allocated to build stadiums and new buildings while US$ 11 million have been spent on the training stadiums and refurbishments and renovation of old buildings. Another US$ 103 million has been spent on transportation and infrastructure projects. A staggering US$ 400 million has been directly allocated on the main stadium which is on par with Olympic standards.
Moreover the organisers have set up a massive sports and media city with 9000 rooms to accommodate the athletes, media personnel, officials and volunteers, which numbers to over 3000. China with 899 athletes fields the biggest contingent and they will compete in 32 sports while hosts South Korea who will contest in same number of sports will field 831 athletes. Japan comes in as the third strongest contingent with 717 athletes. South Korea’s Incheon won the bid to host the 17th Asian Games for the third time beating Indian capital New Delhi by 32 to 13 votes. South Korea has hosted the Asian Games twice – in 1986 in Seoul and in 2002 in Busan.