OCA launches Asian Sports Academy
KUWAIT, March 14, (Agencies): President of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah on Saturday announced the launch of the Sports Academy of Asia. Sheikh Ahmad’s announcement came during his speech delivered before participants at the first Scientific Sport Congress, which was concluded Saturday after three days of intensive sessions and workshops.
The closing event also witnessed an award ceremony, where nine participants; three from Kuwait, three from Iran, two from Korea and one from Jordan, were recognized for their significant contribution to the congress. Research paper winners were Korean Eun Kyon Park on environment, Abdulghani Tablat of Jordan for his paper on governance and Dr Soon Sik Cho on the Asian games, while Iranians Dr. Rahmani, Dr Rahimi and Garagian were rewarded for their group poster research. Kuwaitis awarded were Dr Salman Hajeya, Dr Hatem Mohammad and Dr Hussein Al-Mukeimi; also on their group poster research.
At the end of the award ceremony, Sheikh Ahmad thanked all participants, speakers, moderators and experts, who; within their experience had enriched content of the dialogue sessions and workshops of the congress. Under the theme “Asia Together”, the congress, which saw the (Kuwait Declaration) at its conclusion, took place from March 12-14 as the first ever event of its kind to host sports leaders and scientists across the globe. Out of the 250 contributions made, over 120 were selected by the panel and encompass themes in – sports sciences in Asia, governance of sports in Asia, women sports in Asia, sports marketing in Asia, future of Asian games and sports and environment. Earlier on Friday, Sheikh Ahmad launched a passionate defence of the OCA’s varied sports calendar.
Veteran Chinese sports leader Wei Jizhong, who has headed the committee for 24 years, said more multi-sports games gave more National Olympic Committees the chance to win medals and to host events. This, in turn, strengthened the ties between sport and government and benefited countries socially and economically, said Wei.
“The most efficient way to promote sport in Asia and in one country is through Asian games,” he said. “We have tried many times to give tactical assistance and technical assistance to countries and even helped them construct venues, but the result was not very satisfactory. “Then we found a very efficient way to allow the NOCs to get medals in the games, so we call it medal sharing.”
The OCA will host two new events this year, the Asian Martial Arts Games and Asian Youth Games, taking their portfolio to six, alongside the Asian Games, Asian Winter Games, Asian Indoor Games and Asian Beach Games. Wei used the former Portuguese enclave of Macau-China as an example of how one medal at Asian level can transform the sporting landscape of a region. “Macau won a bronze medal in wushu at one games, the people of Macau were very happy and the government gave their support. Then Macau started organising a lot of games, such as the East Asian Games in 2005 and the Asian Indoor Games in 2007 because of this government support. This one medal completely changed Macau.” Wei said that the International Olympic Committee’s policy of restricting the Summer Olympics to 28 sports left many other sports on the outside, whereas the OCA did not want to exclude anyone from the Olympic family.
“In the OCA we are trying our best to attract all kinds of sports in our different games. The IOC understands this now because they have created the Summer Youth Olympic Games; two was not enough,” he added, referring to the Summer and Winter Olympics. Singapore will stage the first Youth Olympics in August 2010, and will use the first Asian Youth Games in June this year to prepare. Organisers are expecting over 1,000 athletes aged from 14 to 17 in nine sports, and Wei urged Asian NOCs to target the participation of youth rather than medals, otherwise the event would lose its significance.
