Asiad organizers get venue on time
Asiad organizers get venue on time
BANGKOK (Agencies): Asian Games organizers on Thursday definitively abandoned emergency plans to switch events after taking charge of the main sports complex for the event.
The Muang Thong Thani complex was not completely finished for Thursday's deadline for a handover.
"It's not 100 percent complete, but it's 99 percent with 1 percent... to be fixed later," Sakchye Tapsuwan of the Resort Authority of Thailand told AFP.
And organizers of the Bangkok Games, which start on Dec. 6, breathed a sigh of relief to get the keys to Muang Thong Thani. The delay-plagued project by Bangkok Land Plc. has caused more than a few sleepless nights.
Jurin Laksanavisit, a minister in the prime minister's office, and a host of top Thai and Asian sports officials were on hand to receive the complex.
The delays had so worried officials that they were forced to make back-up plans to switch events to the northern city of Chiang Mai and elsewhere.
Sakchye said the Bangkok Asian Games Organizing Committee (BAGOC) had now abandoned those plans. "Nothing will be changed, the program is on schedule," he said.
The facility will be used for the billiards, snooker, boxing, gymnastics, rugby, tennis, volleyball and weightlifting.
It is also being used for tennis, boxing and gymnastics for the pre-games events which began Wednesday at Hua Mark stadium in eastern Bangkok.
In addition to the Bangkok Land site and Hua Mark complex, the other main venue for the 14 day Games is at Thammasat University north of Bangkok.
On Wednesday, the Sports Authority of Thailand began drug tests on local athletes ahead of the Games in December.
"The team will test 50 athletes from 10 sports that are known to lure athletes to use dope," Dr. Chaturaporn na Nakorn, head of the Sports Science Center of Thailand, said.
The testing is intended as a preventive measure to keep some 800 Thai athletes away from doping, said Chaturaporn. It will also serve as a test run for procedures to be used during the games.
The Sports Authority of Thailand specifically requested that 1994 Olympic boxing gold medalist Somluck Khamsingh be tested, said Chaturaporn.
No suspicions have been raised about Somluck. But ensuring that he is drug-free now would avoid any possible embarrassment at the games.
The inspection team will drop by training centers without notifying athletes ahead of time, he added.
Test results will be submitted to the Olympic Committee of Thailand, the body that makes the final decision on which athletes will represent the country.