Asian Games 2010, Guangzhou

The Asian Games 2010 is almost a week away and we are yet to hear much about it. One might say that this is the Chinese way of doing things. Is it just me or is that Guangzhou doesn’t ring a bell other than the recent references to the Asian Games. Somehow, I thought Bangalore is a global city and would have felt surprised if someone from outside India would have shown unfamiliarity with its name. However on a closer look (googling), I found that Guangzhou is double the size of Bangalore and its economy ten times .

This Asian Games is slated to be the biggest ever. ‘Ever’ ,both in past and future because of some restructuring initiated by Olympic Council of Asia.

Given below is a head to head comparison with our own Delhi Commonwealth Games.

	Commonwealth Games 2010	Asian Games 2010
Venue	Delhi, India Quick Facts: Capital of India Second largest city of the country. Population – 12.25 million ( excluding NCR) GDP of city - US$24.5 billion	Guangzhou, China Quick Facts: One of the Five National Central Cities. Third largest city of the country. Population – 10.33 million GDP of city - US $133.5 billion
Budget	Official Estimate – US$ 2.6 billion Unofficial Speculation – US$ 6.8 billion	Official Estimate – US$ 17 billion
Events	272 events in 21 categories	476 events in 42 categories ( Higher than Beijing Olympics which had 302 events in 28 categories)
No. of Countries	71	45
No. of Athletes	6,081	10,156
Venues	Main Stadium – Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium. In total 12 competition venues.	53 Competition Venues
Baton/Torch Relay	Travelled 70 nations of the commonwealth and the whole of India.	Expected to travel 21 cities in Guangdong province and 2 cities off Guangdong province.
Major Controversies	Expenditure Explosion Child Labor and other issues. Collapse of hanging bridge. Game’s village Hygiene prior to the event Ticketing irregularities	Air Quality (Government control over the local media prevents many exposures)

Credits: Wikipedia