Eturbo News Doha has turned into a vast building site as it races against time to be ready to host December’s Asian Games, but despite rumors of unreadiness organizers vow the US$2.8 billion facilities will be set when the starting gun fires. State-of-the-art sports facilities that include the world’s largest sports dome, swanky malls and a much-improved traffic infrastructure are to greet the thousands of athletes and visitors when the quadrennial event is held.
Meanwhile, the capital of gas-rich Qatar must endure the noise of non-stop construction and inconvenience of vast traffic jams, and some of the city’s 750,000 usually tranquil residents have started to complain.
Now rumors are circulating that the 15th Asian Games will be transferred to another city because Qatar will not be ready on December 1.
“I don’t respond to rumors, but I can confirm that we will be ready on the date set to welcome” the games, said Ahmad al-Qahtani, general director of the Games’ organizing committee.
“Moreover, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) which is headed by Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah, is the only body authorized to consider a withdrawal of games,” he told AFP.
Besides, he said, the executive office of the OCA requires a minimum six months’ notice for the games to be moved—legally still possible before the end of May. Qatar won the rights to stage the Asian Games after a vote in 2000 becoming the first Arab country and only the second in West Asia after Iran in 1974 to hold the prestigious event that was first held in India in 1952.
Relatively small at 11,437 square kilometers (4,415 square miles), Qatar has proved itself as a pivotal hub for a wide range of events, conferences and tournaments, but nothing can be compared with the enormity of the Asian Games.
The OCA executive held its last meeting on March 4 and “so far, we have not received any criticism” of preparations for the games, Qahtani added.
“The OCA also supported our proposition” to request member states to submit the lists of their participants in August instead of October, he said.
The athletes village—being built in the heart of Doha to house up to 10,500 people—“will be delivered to us anytime from May” while the rest of the project “will be finished in October,” Qahtani said confidently.
As for the sports infrastructure, “most of the sites reserved for the official competition are ready,” he claimed.
A covered hippodrome will be ready by mid-September, while a water-polo swimming pool and a shooting range will be ready in July and August respectively. In total, Qatar is developing 37 sites for the official competition, including four football grounds, as well as an indoor handball court and another for volleyball. Fifty-two other sites will be available for training in various sports.
Some 60,000 people are expected to be involved in the two-week Games, ranging from organizers to competitors and journalists. Around 6,000 security forces will be deployed alongside an army of 16,000 volunteers to help with organization.
The organizing committee has pre-booked all five-star hotels in Doha -- 2,245 rooms—in addition to 14 new blocks to lodge a further 16,000 people.
Rehearsals of the opening and closing ceremonies are due to take place in a few weeks, while the Olympic flame will leave Qatar on October 8 for a tour of Asia before returning to Doha for the opening. Doha “would not have dared to request organizing these games if it had any fear that they (games) might be withdrawn one day,” Qahtani said. |