Bangkok stresses city will be ready to host Asiad

Bangkok stresses city will be ready to host Asiad

By Mick Elmore

BANGKOK (DPA): Bangkok's planned eight-year march to prepare to host the 13th Asian Games in December turned into a sprint last year when organizers admitted little had been accomplished in the first six years and time was running out.

But now the planners insist everything will be ready in time.

The 13th Asian Games from Dec. 6 to Dec. 20 will be the biggest-ever, with more than 7,000 athletes from 43 countries competing in 36 sports.

But during the past two years doubts have been raised about the preparations carried out by the six Thai governments which held power during those first six years leading up to the games.

"They are on the right stream now. Everything should be ready three months before the games," said former Bangkok Post sports editor Edward Thangarajah, who has covered all 12 modern Asian Games and will publish in November a history of the games entitled "Asia On The Move".

Santiparb Tejavanja, deputy secretary general of the 13th Asian Games concurred. "I can confirm all the sports construction will be completed by October, with everything but the shooting range ready by mid-September. It's the Thai nature that when we have to band together, we do it."

Santiparb admitted that because of political problems some road infrastructure projects are only scheduled to be complete in mid-November, three weeks before the games start.

That will mean a close finish for Bangkok, which in 1997 almost saw the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) take away its right to host the games because of its slow start and officials who "were sitting on their haunches" when they should have started preparing, Thangarajah said.

Losing the games would have been ironic considering Bangkok hosted the games in 1970 and 1978 after first Korea then Pakistan bowed out at the 11th hour due to financial difficulties. Thailand will be the only country to host the games a fourth time after its first in 1966 and its two stand-ins.

Bangkok needs the boost and distraction as the Thai economy flounders through an 18-month old financial crisis. And the games are seen as a windfall for the tourist sector, with tens of thousands of spectators expected.

"It means a lot to Thailand after all the bad news lately. The exposure will be very good," Thangarajah said.

Preparations

Among sportsmen, the Asian Games is second only to the Olympic Games. And like the global sporting event, the Asian Games is growing.

The first modern games in 1951 saw about 500 athletes from 11 countries competing in track and field, basketball, cycling, soccer, swimming and weight-lifting. By 1966, when Bangkok first hosted the games, there were about 2,000 athletes from 11 countries competing in 14 sports.

Thailand won the right to host the 1998 games over Jakarta and Taipei, receiving 20 of the 37 OCA votes. Taipei got 10 votes and Jakarta got seven.

Bangkok's success this time around will depend on traffic management and roads scheduled to be complete by mid-November. The massive 44-kilometer Hopewell project, with a six-lane highway and two public transport rails connecting the various sports sites was canceled last year, but Santiparb said although the project would have helped it won't be missed much.

Instead the government called a special school holiday to coincide with the games to ease traffic and free university students to work as volunteers.

"That will reduce traffic congestion 60 percent. And we need volunteers from the university, we need about 20,000 volunteers," Santiparb said.

The games will also take money, a lot of it. A total US$100 million has been promised from sponsors. The biggest of them, Korean electronics giant Samsung, cut no corners when it revealed its $9 million sponsorship program in a launch on Aug. 27.

Still, the financial crisis has resulted in some sacrifices, including scaled-down opening and closing ceremonies with a budget that shrank from $4.9 million to $1.7 million.

Chai-Yo, the games' elephant mascot that was to be represented by 10-meter-high balloon likeness, will be considerably smaller. Chai-Yo means "cheers" in Thai and organizers say there will be plenty of that.