Looking beyond the Asian Games

Legacy plans are crucial to winning an Asian Games bid and can produce a snowball effect for host cities by attracting even bigger future events

The success of an Asian Games is not just measured by the grandeur of the venues, the size of the crowds or the television viewing figures. For a host city – and nation – the real benefits of the event are judged long after the sporting circus has left. The positive effects demonstrated by recent Asian Games range from development of sports and transport infrastructure, economic growth, international harmonisation and the promise of attracting further investment in future events.

The striking design of the Khalifa stadium played an
important role for Doha in winning bids for future events

Recognising this potential for significant payback, committees bidding for and organising Asian Games are drawing on the experience of previous events and are placing legacy at right at the forefront of their plans.

Busan 2002
In 2002, the South Korean city of Busan – only the second non-capital city to host the Asian Games – took the event up to another level. This Games is remembered primarily for acting as a bridge between nations to promote peace and unity among Asian countries.

For the first time in the event's 52-year history, all 44 members of the Olympic Council of Asia and newly-independent East Timor were represented. It was North Korea's first ever presence in a multi-sport event held in South Korea, while Afghanistan returned to the Asian Games for the first time since the Taliban came to power in the mid-1990s.

Doha 2006
Oil-rich Qatar put forward billions of dollars to underwrite a new generation of modern multipurpose sports venues for its capital city Doha to host the last Asiad in 2006. Bed shortages and transportation troubles aside, the event set a new benchmark for the Asian Games.

Husain Al-Musallam, director general and technical director of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), says the Busan and Doha Games put the cities on the global map and turned them into important destinations for international events. “The Asian Games in these two cities have greatly helped in building their infrastructure and creating various business opportunities for the local citizens,” he says.

Doha points to its vastly improved sports infrastructure and conversion of the athletes’ village to form part of a major medical institution as evidence of wider benefits that have endured beyond the event.

The athlete’s village for the Doha Asian Games is now part of
a major medical institution

The stunning Khalifa Stadium and Aspire Academy, the largest indoor sports dome in the world, are further testament to Doha's legacy ambitions. Seen by some critics as “white elephants” whose expense has become unsustainable in the wake of the Games, these extravagant venues have laid the platform to secure world championships and other prestigious sporting events. Al-Musallam says: “The various stadiums and venues developed for the Games have now become international landmarks and home to various upcoming and aspiring athletes, not only from these respective countries but from other regions.”

In July 2007, Doha landed the 2011 Asian Cup and last month it was named host of the 2010 World Indoor Athletics Championships by the International Association of Athletics Federations. The city now has its eyes on the ultimate prize of hosting the 2016 Olympics.

Guangzhou 2010
Doha has set an incredibly high standard for the Asiad. However, organisers of future Games are setting their sights even higher, drawing from the pool of sports event experts in their own countries to deliver on their bid promises. Guangzhou 2010 will use the expertise of the organisers of the Beijing Olympics to up the ante.

“We have already built a very strong relationship between the two organising committees,” says Sun Weide, deputy director of communications at the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG). “In our organizing committee, there are already more than 2,000 paid staff, and the figure is expected to increase to 4,000. And also we will have 100,000 volunteers. These people will certainly have a very important role to play in the modernisation of the country, including the organisation of big sports events.”

If the run-up to the Beijing Olympics is a comparable precedent, Guangzhou can look forward to significant economic growth as a result of the Asian Games According to BOCOG, the social and economic development of Beijing is one of the key Olympic legacies. Partly due to Olympic preparations, Beijing’s GDP grew 12.8 per cent last year to exceed USD 6,300 (RMB 46,590 / GBP 3,050) per capita.

Weide highlights five features of Olympics planning which he believes can help Guangzhou's preparations: strong government support; the enthusiasm and active participation of Chinese people in certain aspects of preparations, such as ideas for the logo, mascots and Olympic slogan; long-term efforts to improve the environment; strengthening international cooperation in the areas of Olympic marketing, venue construction, broadcasting and cultural activities; and combining Chinese culture with Olympic ideals.

The Guangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee (GAGOC) organisers are placing huge emphasis on legacy benefits. GACOG points to the new facilities and revamped transport network that will be left behind in the wake of 2010.
 
Incheon 2014
The South Korean port city of Incheon is looking even further into the future. With legacy plans right at the heart of its bid campaign, Incheon stretched ahead of New Delhi in the race to host the 2014 Asian Games and was awarded the 17th Asian Games in April 2006. This will make Incheon the third Korean host of the Asian Games, following Seoul and Busan in 1986 and 2002 respectively.

Building on its role as a host city during the 2002 World Cup, Incheon, located to the west of Seoul and with a population of around 2.7 million, is developing a sports hub around Munhak Stadium. Various new sports complexes will be built elsewhere and existing venues renovated.

After the Games, the athletes’ village will be transformed into educational facilities. Despite costs running into billions of dollars, organisers point to the massive economic benefits, the creation of over 270,000 new jobs and the prospect of Incheon emerging as an international city.

To some observers, it was little surprise that Incheon won the right to host the 2014 Asian Games. With the 1986 Asiad, 1988 Olympics and the 2002 football World Cup – not to mention Pyeongchang’s two failed 2014 Winter Olympic bids – South Korea is well qualified to stage the 2014 Asian Games.

Al-Musallam says the country’s successful track record of hosting huge events had a part to play in the selection of the 2014 Asian Games host city at the OCA’s 26th general assembly. “The experience and knowledge gained from hosting these international events greatly helps any bidding city, and the same was the case with Incheon,” he says.

Whether or not Incheon’s win and Daegu’s clinching of the 2011 World Athletics Championships dented Pyeongchang’s 2014 Olympic hopes is uncertain. Sochi beat off competition from its Korean rival by just four votes at the IOC’s general assembly in Guatemala on 4 July. But what is certain is that South Korea is growing in stature on the international event scene.

South Korea’s reputation was further enhanced in October 2007 when the south-western coastal city of Yeosu was chosen to host the 2012 World Expo, ahead of Tangier in Morocco and the Polish city of Wroclaw. And it proved that even a city with a tiny population of 320,000 can make its mark on the global stage.

Doha 2016?
Al-Musallam says Doha's Asian Games success can only aid the tiny Gulf state’s campaign to host the 2016 summer Olympics, which was launched with a spectacular ceremony on Doha's headland in October 2007. “In terms of participation and the number of sports, the Asiad is even bigger than the Olympic Games. Any city organising these Games has first-hand knowledge of how to organise a multi-sport event of such magnitude, which is a great help in their bid for the Olympics.”

Doha is up against Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, Prague, Rio de Janeiro and Baku in the race to host the 2016 Olympics. The city’s application dossier will be submitted to the International Olympic Committee on 14 January. A shortlist of the candidate cities will be unveiled in June 2008 and the host city announced by the IOC in October 2009.

Qatar spent USD 2.8bn (RMB 20.7bn / GBP 1.4bn) to build state-of-the-art sports facilities and associated infrastructure for the Asian Games and no expense is being spared to bring the Olympics to Doha. Hassan Ali Bin Ali, chairman of the Doha bid, says the bid campaign is building on a great legacy of facilities – some of the Asian Games venues would be upgraded and new ones built for an Olympics.

In line with IOC guidelines, Bin Ali acknowledges the need to deliver a sustainable Games. “We are a rich country but we want to use our financial resources in the proper way so we are not going to go building left, right and centre because we have that ability. We are going to be sensible about building our village, upgrading some sports facilities and building others.”

Bin Ali is confident Doha can land the 2016 Olympics. “We are capable. We carried out an excellent Asian Games. We believe that honouring Doha with the 2016 Games will unleash the power of the Olympic Movement and peaceful sport to create understanding, hope and change that could unite the Arabic world with the rest of the world.”