Phl to host Centennial Asiad

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Jose Cojuangco Jr. announced yesterday that the country has been awarded the rights to host the 100th year celebration of the Asian Games by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) in late November or early December 2013, in what will surely mark an epic milestone in the nation’s sports history.

“This will put the Philippines back in the Asian sports map, if not the world,” said Cojuangco who received the confirmation letter from OCA president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah of Kuwait the other day. “We’ll take the opportunity to showcase our country in this national effort.”

The Asian Games date back to 1913 when Manila hosted what was called the Oriental Olympics, later known as the Far Eastern Games. The Philippines was the prime mover of the event, initially held every two years by turns in Manila, Shanghai and Osaka. There were 11 Games staged until political unrest and wars forced the cancellation of the conclave in 1934.

After World War II, representatives from the Philippines and China conferred to resurrect the Games in 1948. The next year, the Asian Athletic Federation was established in New Delhi and declared the birth of the Asian Games to be held every four years.

In 1951, the first Asian Games were hosted by New Delhi with 489 athletes from 11 participating nations vying for honors in 57 events in six sports, including swimming, athletics, basketball and football. Manila hosted the second Games in 1954. Bangkok has hosted four Games in 1966, 1970, 1978 and 1998. Other hosts were Tokyo, Jakarta, Tehran, Seoul, Beijing, Hiroshima, Busan, Doha and Guangzhou. In 2010, the 16th Asian Games assembled a record 9,704 athletes competing in 476 events in 42 sports in Guangzhou. The next Asian Games will be hosted by Incheon in 2014.

Cojuangco said the Philippines gave up its rights to host the Asian Beach Games in 2013 for the privilege to stage the Centennial celebration.

“We pursued the opportunity to host and fortunately, Sheikh Ahmad gave his go-signal,” said Cojuangco. “Definitely, we’ll use this event to sell our country as a tourist destination. The OCA will hold a General Assembly meeting and we’re thinking of a tourist spot as the venue.”

Cojuangco said given whatever resources are available, a plan will be formulated to list the different sports and cultural events to serve as the highlights of the celebration. “Of course, we’d like to put the events in different provinces so we can showcase as much of our country as possible,” he said. “But that depends on which sports will be played and whether the member countries are willing to play in different provinces.”

Cojuangco said his idea is to calendar representative sports in the events that the OCA sanctions – the Asian Games, Asian Indoor Games, Asian Martial Arts Games, Asian Winter Games, Asian Beach Games, Asian Youth Games and Asian Indoor Martial Arts Games.

“The Olympic compulsory sports will be at the top of the list – aquatics and athletics,” he said. “From the Winter Games, we’ll probably include ice skating. We’ll include taekwondo from the martial arts. Basketball will be in the schedule and maybe, we’ll consider the Youth event of three-on-three. For football, we’ll have fields compliant with FIFA standards by then with a Quezon City turf being put up by FEU and the Rizal Memorial, among others.”

Cojuangco also disclosed a plan to inaugurate an Asian Sports Hall of Fame, honoring the region’s 100 most outstanding athletes in the last 100 years as a feature of the Centennial rites.