Monday, February 7, 2011

Asian Games 2010 Guangzhou, China


The 2010 Asian Games, also known as the XVI Asiad, was a multi-sport event in Guangzhou,China that began on 12 November and finished on 27 November 2010. Guangzhou was the second Chinese city to host the Games, after Beijing in 1990. A total of 476 events in 42 sports was contested by athletes, making it the largest event in the history of the Games. It was also the last iteration of the Games to have featured such big events, as the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) have enforced new hosting rules for future games, beginning with the 2014 Games.
Guangzhou was awarded the right to host the Games on July 1, 2004, as the sole bidding city. This came after the withdrawal of several cities, Amman, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. The games were co-hosted by Dongguan, Foshan and Shanwei, the three neighbouring cities.
The opening and closing ceremonies were held along the Pearl River in Haixinsha Island, and was the first time in history that the opening ceremony for a major sports event was not held inside a stadium. The final medal tally was led by traditional powerhouse China, followed bySouth Korea and third place Japan. China set a new Games record with 199 gold medals.[1]Some three World and 103 Asian records were broken.[2] In addition, the Badminton men's singles gold medalist Lin Dan was voted as Most Valuable Player (MVP).[3] The President of Olympic Council of Asia Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah hailed the Games as "outstanding" and "one of the best ever".[4]

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[edit]Organisation

[edit]Bid

On July 1, 2004, Guangzhou was awarded the right to host the Games; the decision was announced inDoha, Qatar.[5] This decision came after several other cities withdrew due to separate reasons. Seoulwithdrew after considering the short span of time between 2002 and 2010, because South Korea hosted the 2002 Games eight years before in Busan.[6] Kuala Lumpur was forced to withdraw its bid after it was boycotted by the cabinet due to the high cost of hosting the Games, leaving Guangzhou as the sole bidder.[7][8]

[edit]Marketing

The 2010 Asian Games' official emblem was unveiled at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall on November 26, 2006. It is a stylized representation of Guangzhou's famous Statue of the Five Goats (五羊雕像) fused with a running track. The goat, in Chinese tradition, is a blessing and brings people luck while the host city Guangzhou is known as the "City of Goats".[9] The orange and yellow emblem also resembles a flame.
Five sporty rams were the mascots of the Games. They were unveiled on April 28, 2008 at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Convention and Exhibition Center.[10][11] The five rams, including four small rams with one large ram, are named A Xiang (祥), A He (和), A Ru (如), A Yi (意) and Le Yangyang (樂洋洋). The Chinese character "yang," or "goat," is an auspicious symbol because, when read together, the Chinese names of the five rams are a message of blessing, literally meaning "harmony, blessings, success and happiness" (祥和如意樂洋洋).[12]
The official theme song was released on September 30, 2010, and is called "Reunion" (in Chinese, "Chongfeng" [重逢]), and was composed by Wu Liqun, with lyrics written by Xu Rongkai, while the English version was translated by Chen Ning Yang, a Chinese-American physicist, and his wife, Weng Fan. The song was also performed by Sun Nan and Bella Yao (姚贝娜).[13] Sun Nan then performed it again with Mao Amin for a music video.[14]

[edit]Costs

Several statements were made prior to the official statement about the cost. On March 11, 2005, Lin Shusen of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) said the Games "will not cost more than ￥2 billion",[15] in stark contrast to an earlier report, which had claimed that the cost could exceed ￥200 billion.[16]
In March 2009, the director of the marketing department of the Games, Fang Da’er, claimed that the Games were short of funds, due to lack of sponsorship and the global financial crisis.[17] An informal estimate put the Games' expenditure at about US$420 million and revenue at US$450 million.[18]
On October 13, 2010, Mayor of Guangzhou Wan Qingliang officially revealed in a press conference that the total cost of staging the Asian Games and Asian Para Games is about ￥122.6 billion ($17 billion), with ￥109 billion spent on infrastructure, ￥6.3 billion on the venues and some ￥7.3 billion spent on Games' operation.[19]

[edit]Venues


Guangdong Olympic Stadium
Main article: Venues of the 2010 Asian Games
There are 53 competition venues and 17 training venues available for the Games, with four venues held outside the Guangzhou. These include the Asian Games Town, which consists of the Athletes' Village, Technical Officials' Village, Media Village, Main Media Center and International Broadcast Center.[20] Organisers revealed that the total investment is over ￥15 billion.[21]
On April 19, 2009, organisers chose Haixinsha Island, along with the Pearl River, as the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, the only venue which was not for competition purposes.[22]

[edit]Transport


MTR KTT with Games advertisment
To prepare for the Games, the public infrastructure has been upgraded significantly.[23] Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport had been upgraded, in contracted to Crisplant, to support massive volume of passengers.[24] A new Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway was opened on December 26, 2009, shorten the travel time between two destinations.[25]
In order to ease the traffic congestion and air pollution, the government had ordered to reduce 40 percent of vehicles,[26] and offered 1,000 buses during the Games and Para Games.[27]Government also had free-ride offer for public transportation during the month of Games,[28] but cancelled one week prior to the Games due to overwhelming response from the citizens.[29]Instead, government offered ￥150 ($21) cash subsidies to each household with permanent residence for commuting purposes.[30]

[edit]Torch relay


Torch relay route
Main article: 2010 Asian Games torch relay
Two torch designs were short-listed in September 2009 for the 2010 Asian Games. A design named The Tide was chosen over one named Exploit by the organisers as the torch of the Games.The Tide weighs 98g and is 70 cm long, and is tall and straight in shape, while dynamic in terms of image.[31]
The torch relay route was unveiled on March 4, 2010. For financial reasons,[32] the torch relay duration around Guangdong and two other cities off Guangdong are 30 days. The flame of the torch was lit in the Great Wall of China on October 9, 2010, and travelled around the Temple of Heavenin Beijing. 21 cities were present in the list of relay, with 2,010 torchbearers expected to carry it from October 12 to November 12, 2010;[33][34] however, two cities were added later to the route for a single day on October 15, 2010, the host of 2007 Asian Winter Games and 2012 Asian Beach Games, increasing the number of torchbearers to 2,068 people.[35]
The relay in Harbin was held in the main venue of the 1996 Asian Winter Games, the Harbin Ice Hockey Rink, while the relay on October 22, 2010 was affected by Typhoon Megi as it was held under the rain.[36] The relay from November 6–8 acted as a demonstration relay.

[edit]


Games


Firework displays at theCanton Tower

[edit]Opening ceremony

Main article: 2010 Asian Games opening ceremony
The opening ceremony officially began on November 12, 2010 at 20:00 local time. For the first time in history, the ceremony was not held inside a stadium; instead, it was held along the Pearl River on Haixinsha Island.[37]The ceremony was directed by Chen Weiya, assistant director of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and featured a cast of about 6,000 performers.[38] It was attended by the Premier of the People's Republic of China,Wen Jiabao,[39] President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari,[40] Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva,[41] Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong Henry Tang,[42] as well as President of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah and President of International Olympic CommitteeJacques Rogge.[43] The ceremony lasted for three hours, and together with the closing ceremony cost about ￥380 million ($53 million).[44]
Athletes were paraded by boats along the Pearl River.[45] The ceremony featured the water-themed arts show and culture of Guangzhou. The last torchbearer, diver He Chong lit up the cauldron, after igniting the traditional Chinese firecrackers whose flare shot up to the top of the tower where the cauldron was held.[46]
The ceremony was regarded as successful by IOC President Jacques Rogge who described it as "absolutely fantastic",[47] and said Guangzhou has the ability to host the Olympics.[48] OCA director general Husain Al-Musallam praised the games saying that it was unique, fantastic and "just better than the Beijing Olympics".[49]

[edit]Sports

Compared to the 28 events in the Olympic Games, the 2010 Asian Games featured 42 sports throughout the 16 days of the competition, with added disciplines in some events. 28 and five gold medalists emerged during the opening day and final day respectively, while a total of 48 gold medalists were awarded on November 26, 2010, the most in single day.[50] Twenty20 cricket is one of the debut sports,[51] whiledancesport, dragon boat, weiqi and roller sport is unique in the Games.[52] Bodybuilding was dropped due to judging controversy in the 2006 Games.[53]

[edit]Closing ceremony

The closing ceremony began on November 27, 2010 at 8:06pm local time in front of 35,000 spectators.[54] The show began with the theme "Leave Your Song Here", which included music and dance from China, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Japan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.[2] The singers included the only Indian singer invited by Asian Games authority 'Ravi k Tripathi' with Tanya, who sang "Saajan ji Ghar Aaye" and "Aao re Jhumo re",[55] Indonesian's "Sing Sing So" and Japanese "Sakura".[56] Various artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China performed "Triumphant Return" (凯旋), among them are Alan Tam, Leo Ku and Hacken Lee.[56]
The ceremony also included an eight-minute segment from Incheon with singer and actor Rain performing the segment.[57] The Mayor of Incheon Song Young-gil received the Games flag for 2014 Games.[58]
The closing ceremony ended with the song "Everyone" (每一个人) and "Cheer for Asia" (为亚细亚喝彩).[59]

[edit]Medal table

Main article: 2010 Asian Games medal table
China led the medal table for the eighth consecutive time with a new record for the most number of gold medals (at 199 gold medals) won in a single Games. This bettered their previous record of 183 gold medals won by China at Beijing in 1990.[1] Macau,[60] and Bangladesh won their first Asian Games gold medal from wushu and cricket, respectively.[61] Some 35 NOCs (except Kuwait who competed under theOlympic flag) won at least a single medal with 27 NOCs winning at least a single gold medal, thus leaving nine NOCs failing to win any medal at the Games.
The top ten ranked NOCs at these Games are listed below. The host nation, China, is highlighted.
Rank↓Nation↓Gold↓Silver↓Bronze↓Total↓
1 China (CHN)*19911998416
2 South Korea (KOR)766591232
3 Japan (JPN)487494216
4 Iran (IRI)20152459
5 Kazakhstan (KAZ)18233879
6 India (IND)14173465
7 Chinese Taipei (TPE)13163867
8 Uzbekistan (UZB)11222356
9 Thailand (THA)1193252
10 Malaysia (MAS)9181441
Total4774796211577

[edit]Participation

All 45 members of the Olympic Council of Asia participated in the Games. All National Olympic Committees were ordered to submit their entries before September 30, 2010. Organisers allowed each NOC to submit additional entries and injury replacements after the deadline. After the final registration deadline, some 9,704 athletes, as well as some 4,750 team officials, took part in the Games, an increase of 184 athletes from the previous Asian Games in Doha.[62] According to the Games' official website, Kuwaiti athletes participated the Games under the Olympic flag because the Kuwait Olympic Committee was suspended due to political interference in January 2010.[63]
Below is a list of all the participating NOCs; the number of competitors per delegation is indicated in brackets.
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