2010 Asian Games

The 2010 Asian Games (Chinese: 2010年亚洲运动会; pinyin: Èr líng yī líng nián yǎzhōu yùndònghuì), also known as the XVI Asian Games (Chinese: 第十六届亚洲运动会; pinyin: dì shíliù jiè yǎzhōu yùndònghuì), was a multi-sport event celebrated in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China from 12 to 27 November 2010, although several events had commenced from 7 November 2010. This was the second time China had hosted the Games, in which Guangzhou was the second Chinese city to host, after Beijing in 1990. A total of 9,704 athletes from 45 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competed in 476 events from 42 sports and disciplines (28 Olympic sports and 14 non-Olympic sports), making it the largest event in the history of the Games. Due to reductions in the number of sports to be contested for the 2014 Asian Games, these Games marked the final time that six non-Olympic events would be held during the Asian Games.

The Games were co-hosted by Dongguan, Foshan and Shanwei, Guangzhou’s three neighboring cities. It was opened by Premier Wen Jiabao at Haixinsha Island. A total of 53 venues were used to host the events including 11 constructed for use at the Games. The design concept of the official logo of these Asian Games was based on the legend about the Guangzhou, and featured a stylized calligraphic “Stone Statue of Five Goats in Yuexiu Hill”, a symbol of the host city.

The opening and closing ceremonies were held along the Pearl River in Haixinsha Island, and was the first time in history that the opening ceremony for a major sports event was not held inside a stadium. The final medal tally was led by China, followed by South Korea and third place Japan. China set a new Games record with 199 gold medals. Three World and 103 Asian records were broken. Macau and Bangladesh won their first ever Asian Games gold medals. In addition, the badminton men’s singles gold medalist Lin Dan was voted as most valuable player (MVP). The President of Olympic Council of Asia Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah hailed the Games as “outstanding” and “one of the best ever”.

Bidding process

Seoul and Amman dropped out before their bids were officially selected by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), leaving only two candidate cities — Guangzhou and Kuala Lumpur by 31 March 2004. Seoul withdrew after considering the short span of time between 2002 and 2010, as South Korea hosted the 2002 Games in Busan. Evaluation committee of the OCA, inspected Kuala Lumpur from 12–14 April and Guangzhou from 14–16 April 2004. However, Kuala Lumpur was forced to withdraw its bid after the declaration of the Malaysian government on 15 April 2004 that it would not support the Olympic Council of Malaysia with a Kuala Lumpur bid due to the high cost of hosting the Games which estimated at US$366 million, leaving Guangzhou as the sole bidder. The OCA unanimously selected Guangzhou to host the 2010 Games at their 23rd general assembly session in Doha, Qatar, site of the 2006 Asian Games, on 1 July 2004.

2010 Asian Games bidding results

City	NOC	Votes
Guangzhou	China	Acclaimed

Development and preparations

Costs

On March 11, 2005, Lin Shusen, then party secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) said the Games “will not cost more than ￥2 billion”, in stark contrast to an earlier report, which had claimed that the cost could exceed ￥200 billion.

In March 2009, the director of the marketing department of the Games, Fang Da’er, claimed that the Games were short of funds, due to lack of sponsorship and the global financial crisis. An informal estimate put the Games’ expenditure at about US$420 million and revenue at US$450 million.

On October 13, 2010, Wan Qingliang, mayor of Guangzhou at the time, officially revealed in a press conference that the total cost of staging the Asian Games and Asian Para Games is about ￥122.6 billion ($18.37 billion), with ￥109 billion spent on the city’s infrastructure, ￥6.3 billion on the venues and some ￥7.3 billion spent on Games’ operation.

The full spending details would be released before 2013, according to the city’s finance chief Zhang Jieming. It was later reported that Guangzhou generated US$32 billion (￥210 billion) debt after staging the games.

Volunteers

Volunteer recruitment program for the 2010 Asian Games began at 9 pm on 21 April 2009 with target of 60,000 games-time volunteers. The volunteers were given green short-sleeve t-shirt, green long-sleeve t-shirt, sport jacket, pair of trousers, hat, water bottle, pair of sport shoes and waist bag.

Torch relay

Two torch designs were short-listed in September 2009 for the 2010 Asian Games. A design named “The Tide” was chosen over one named “Exploit” by the organizers as the torch of the Games. “The Tide” weighs 98 g and is 70 cm long, and is tall and straight in shape, while dynamic in terms of image.

The torch relay route was unveiled on March 4, 2010 and due to budgetary issues and the problems related to 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay. The organizers decided to carry it out on a smaller scale than those carried out in previous editions.The torch was Guangdong province and was traveled across 21 major cities of the Guangdong Province. The flame of the torch was lit at the Great Wall of China on October 9, 2010, and traveled around the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. As originally scheduled 21 cities were present in the list of relay, with 2,010 torchbearers expected to carry it from October 12 to November 12, 2010; however, two more cities — Changchun in Jilin and Haiyang in Shandong, the host cities of 2007 Asian Winter Games and 2012 Asian Beach Games respectively, were also later added to the route for a single day on October 15, 2010, increasing the number of torchbearers to 2,068 people.

Marketing

Emblem

The official emblem of the Games was unveiled at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall on November 26, 2006 to prepare the city to succeed Doha 2006 as Asian Games host city. It is a stylized representation of Guangzhou’s “Statue of the Five Goats” (Chinese: 五羊雕像; pinyin: Wǔ yáng diāoxiàng) fused with a running track. The goat, in Chinese tradition, is a blessing and brings people luck while the host city Guangzhou is known as the “City of Goats”. The orange and yellow emblem also resembles a flame.

Mascot

The mascots of the Games were the five sporty rams. They were unveiled on April 28, 2008 at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Convention and Exhibition Center. The five rams, including four small with one large, were named– A Xiang (祥), A He (和), A Ru (如), A Yi (意) and Le Yangyang (樂洋洋). The Chinese character “yang,” or “goat,” is an auspicious symbol because, when read together, the Chinese names of the five rams are a message of blessing, literally meaning “harmony, blessings, success and happiness” (祥和如意樂洋洋).

Medals

The medal designs themed the “Maritime Silk Road” were unveiled at Guangzhou No. 2 Children’s Palace on 29 September 2010. It featured the Emblem of the Olympic Council of Asia and Guangzhou’s kapok flower on the obverse and the Maritime Silk Road image and the games’ logo on the reverse. The Maritime Silk Road image depicts a Chinese boat sailing on the sea, represents Guangzhou as the starting place of Maritime Silk Road, an important commercial center and entrepot of the South China region.

Motto

The official motto of the 2010 Asian Games is “Thrilling Games, Harmonious Asia” (Chinese: 激情盛会, 和谐亚洲; pinyin: Jīqíng shènghuì, héxié yàzhōu). It was chosen to represent the goal of the Asian Games which is based on Olympic ideals and values, aimed at creating a competitive atmosphere for participating athletes while promoting unity, peace and friendship among Asian people regardless of differences in race, nationality, religious beliefs and language.

Promotion

Two years before the games, “Road of Asia” tour was launched at Tianhe Sports Center to promote the games throughout the region. A ceremony was held on 12 November 2009 at the Guangzhou Gymnasium to mark the one-year milestone before the Games.

Merchandising

Organizers started selling licensed Asian Games products with introduction of first batch in January 2008. On 7 May 2009, Southern Metropolis Daily signed a contract with the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (GAGOC) and became the exclusive online merchandiser of the 16th Asiad’s licensed products.

Music

The official theme song was released on September 30, 2010, and is called “Reunion” (in Chinese, “Chongfeng” ). It was composed by Wu Liqun, with lyrics written by Xu Rongkai, while the English version was translated by Chen Ning Yang, a Chinese-American physicist, and his wife, Weng Fan. The song was also performed by Sun Nan and Bella Yao (姚贝娜). Sun Nan then performed it again with Mao Amin for a music video. The song was selected from a solicitation campaign for Asian Games songs which received more than 1,600 entries. 36 of them were released as selected songs for the Games.

Venues

A total of 53 competition venues and 17 training venues were used for the Games, with four venues located outside of Guangzhou. Events took place at 42 pre-existing venues; eleven competition venues and one training venues were constructed for the Games, while the rest were renovated. Other venues included the Asian Games Town, which consists of the Athletes’ Village, Technical Officials’ Village, Media Village, Main Media Center and International Broadcast Center. Organizers revealed that the total investment was over ￥15 billion.

On April 19, 2009, organizers chose Haixinsha Island, along with the Pearl River, as the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, the only venue which was not for competition purposes.

The athletes village in the Asian Games Town was built on a 329,024 square meters land space which had 3,598 apartments in 49 buildings.

Transport

Guangzhou’s public transportation infrastructure was expanded significantly as a part of the preparation for the Games. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport had been upgraded, in contracted to Crisplant (former FKI Logistex), to support massive volume of passengers. A new Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway was opened on December 26, 2009, shorten the travel time between two destinations.

In order to ease the traffic congestion and air pollution, the government ordered 40 percent reduction of vehicles and offered 1,000 buses during the Games and Para Games. The government also had a free-ride offer for public transportation during the month of Games, but cancelled one week prior to the Games due to overwhelming response from the citizens. Instead, government offered ￥150 (US$21.71) cash subsidies to each household with permanent residence for commuting purposes.

The Games

Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was held on 12 November. For the first time in Asian Games history, the ceremony was not held in a traditional stadium setting. Instead, it was held at Haixinsha Island, using the Pearl River and Canton Tower as focal points. The ceremony was directed by Chen Weiya, assistant director of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and featured a cast of about 6,000 performers. It was attended by the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister of Thailand Abhisit Vejjajiva, Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong Henry Tang, as well as OCA president Ahmed Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, and Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee. The ceremony lasted for three hours, and together with the closing ceremony costed about ￥380 million (US$55.01 million).

Athletes were paraded by boats along the Pearl River. The ceremony featured the water-themed arts show and culture of Guangzhou. The last torchbearer, diver He Chong lit up the cauldron, after igniting traditional Chinese firecrackers, whose flare shot up to the top of the tower where the cauldron was held.

The ceremony received positive reviews; Rogge was quoted as considering the ceremony to be “absolutely fantastic”, and felt that it demonstrated the city’s “ability to host the Olympics”. OCA director general Husain Al-Musallam also praised the ceremony, arguing that it was unique and “just better than the Beijing Olympics “.

Sports

476 events were held in 42 sports, including the 26 sports contested at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and additional non-Olympic sports. This marked an increase from the 424 events in 39 sports hosted in 2006. The OCA approved Cricket (Twenty20) for inclusion in the main program, while events were also held in dancesport (competitive ballroom dancing), dragon boat, weiqi and roller sport were also held in Guangzhou. Bodybuilding was dropped following criticism over the quality of judging in the competition at the 2006 Games.