The OCA President, HE Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah, welcomed the members to the capital city of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Turkmenistan on the occasion of the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games and ahead of the OCA General Assembly on Wednesday.</st1:country-region>
“I am honoured to be here with the sports family from Asia and Oceania, the International Olympic Committee, International Federations, Asian Federations and other members of the sports society,” said Sheikh Ahmad.
“I express my gratitude and thanks to the President of Turkmenistan, His Excellency Gurbanguly Berdimuhamdeov, the government, National Olympic Committee and the citizens for the warm welcome and support, which makes all of us proud.”
Sheikh Ahmad added that the athletes from Asia and Oceania were joined together to compete for the first time in Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games.
“We are happy that refugee team in these games have reached the final stage and achieve medal with their best performance,” said Sheikh Ahmad. “I hope this exercise started by the IOC in <st1:place w:st="on">Rio becomes a tradition to show our solidarity for the future. We will follow the IOC.”
OCA Coordination Committee Chairman Mr. Tsunekazu Takeda said: “the OCA EB had finalised the sports programme of 40 sports and 462 events for the 18th Asian Games in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Indonesia next year”. Mr Takeda is also very happy about the one-year countdown ceremony in Asian Games co-host cities Jakarta and Palembang on August 18 had attracted a total of 60,000 spectators, and the attendance of Indonesia’s President, Joko Widodo, in Jakarta showed the support of the central government.</st1:country-region>
Asian Games Organising Committee from Jakarta – Palembang 2018 and Hangzhou 2022 present their progress report.
The 18th Asian Games will take place from August 18 to September 2, 2018, with 9,500 athletes and 5,500 team officials from the OCA’s 45 National Olympic Committees. The Torch Relay will begin three weeks before the opening ceremony.
The Executive Board meeting approved all reports of Vice President and Standing Committee and thanks for AIMAG offer such wonderful and state-of-art facilities to Asian and Oceanian athletes by creating a truly clean and environmental games.
The next Executive Board meeting will be held in Sri Lanka on a date to be finalised.