Call for Olympic Council of Asia to curb nationality switches

By Nick Butler at the Centara Convention Centre in Bangkok

A call for a review into athletes who switch nationality to compete for new countries topped the agenda at today’s Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) Advisory Meeting, as well as discussion over the “size, scale and cost” of the Asian Games.

The first debate came after a farcical athletics competition at the Asian Games in Incheon where 14 of the 22 individual running events were won by athletes of African origin who had switched nationality, either to Bahrain, Qatar or United Arab Emirates.

Nigeria-born Femi Ogunode, returning from from a two-year doping ban earlier this year, competed for Qatar at Incheon 2014 and set an Asian record time of 9.93sec to win the 100 metres, later adding the 200m title.

Moroccan born Mohamad Al-Garni also achieved the 1500m and 5,000m double for Qatar, while Kemi Adekoya won both the women’s 400m and 400m hurdles after switching from Nigeria to Bahrain earlier this year without the head of Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Solomon Ogba, even being aware.

Similar incidents were seen in other sports on the programme.

The Advisory Committee, which consists of all the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members from Asia, and was chaired by Singapore’s Ser Miang Ng, raised several concerns from National Olympic Committees who had lost medals due to athletes of non-Asian origin. 

Nigerian-born Kemi Adekoya won two gold medals for Bahrain in Incheon, after switching nationality earlier this year ©Getty Images

A second recommendation calling for a review into the size, scale and cost of the Asian Games was also suggested, following recent reluctance to bid for major continental sporting events. 

There will be more discussions on both recommendations at future OCA Executive Board and General Assembly meetings, insidethegames understands. 

Hanoi was initially meant to hold the 2019 Asian Games only to pull out citing “economic pressures” earlier this year, leading to Indonesian capital Jakarta stepping in.

They hold the Games a year earlier to avoid a clash with Presidential elections in the country. 

Plans for the Athletes’ Village and sport venues at Jakarta 2018 was another item on the agenda in today’s meeting, less than a month after the city was officially confirmed as host at the OCA General Assembly held during the last Asian Games in Incheon.

OCA Executive Board member Rita Subowo, President of the Indonesian National Olympic Committee, revealed the Village will consist of between seven and eight apartment blocks in the south cluster of Jakarta, although some events will take place in the north of the capital city.

Six outer ring roads will be used to link the north and south clusters in order to avoid heavy traffic in the city centre.

Outside the capital, events will also take place in West Java and in Palembang, South Sumatra, it was also revealed.

Also at the meeting, an update on recent Olympic business was provided, as well as a review of Incheon 2014.

A report was provided by China’s IOC vice-president Yu Zaiqing on the recent IOC Executive Board meeting in Lausanne and in particular on the 40 recommendations proposed as part of the Olympic Agenda 2020 reform process, due to be released to the public later this month.

These included possible changes to the bidding process to reduce costs, flexibility of the sports programme of the Olympic Games and the launch of an Olympic TV channel.

Contact the writer of this story of this story at nick.butler@insidethegames.biz

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