By Peter Auf der Heyde Dec 16, 2006, 17:53 GMT
Doha, Qatar - When a spectacular show on Friday brought down the curtain at the 15th Asian Games it marked the end of the first-ever time that the showpiece of Asian sport has been held in the Gulf region.
Performers take part in events during the closing ceremony of the 15th Asian Games Doha 2006 in the Khalifa Stadium, in Doha, Qatar, on Friday 15 December 2006. EPA/KHALED EL-FIQI
Over 10,000 athletes from 43 countries competed in 424 medal events in 39 different sports.
All but seven (Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Maldives, Oman, Palestine and Timor-Leste) countries medalled, while - hardly surprising - China once again led the way with 165 gold medals, 88 silver and 63 bronze.
They beat their closest rivals South Korea by more than 100 gold medals and 123 medals in total.
That also served as an early warning to the US that they will be very serious rivals at the Olympics 2008 on home ground in Beijing, even if Chinese Olympic official Duan Shi Jie said that they were not totally satisfied.
'We saw that we are good at the Asian Games, but some of our standards are not yet an international level. There is a big difference between the Asian Games and the Olympics,' he warned.
The stand-out athletes were Park Tae Hwan, Pang Jiaying and Yang Wei.
South Korean schoolboy Park won an amazing seven medals: three gold, three bronze and one silver and showed that his hopes of becoming the first South Korean to win an Olympic swim medal are not that far fetched.
He also won the MVP award (best athlete) at the Games.
Pang is another swimmer who could do well in Beijing in two years. The Chinese athlete won six medals (four gold and two silver).
Compatriot Yang ruled the gymnastics competition with four titles.
The hosts were popular winners in the football competition, beating another crowd favourite Iraq 1-0 in the final in the Al-Saad Stadium on Friday.
African-born athletes took most of the running medals, thereby repaying at least some of the investment countries like Qatar and Bahrain made in them.
The Games were not - as was feared beforehand - overshadowed by doping cases although five positive tests were announced. Four of those occured in weightlifting, a sport troubled for years by substance abuse.
Only one athlete, Oo Mya Sanda of Myanmar, tested positive after winning a medal. She had to give back her silver medal in the women's 75kg weightlifting division.
But there was more to the 15th Asian Games than the bare statistics.
Qatar officials were quite open about the fact that they saw these Games as a first step towards winning the right to host the Olympic Games - hopefully in 2016.
The secretary general of the Qatar National Olympic Committee, Sheikh Saoud Bin Abdul-Rahman Al-Thani said: 'We already have a strategy to bid for the Olympics, but before you bid you must show that you can host a big sporting event. Qatar hosted the Asian Games and other events. So this bid is not new, it is part of our strategy.'
There is no doubt that Qatar would be perfectly capable of hosting the Olympics in terms of facilities, as the stadiums, halls and pools used during the Games fully meet international standard.
The country is far short of enough hotel accommodation that would be needed for the Olympics, but that should not prove a hindrance as a country willing to spend 2.9 billion dollars (2.2 billion euros) for the Asian Games will likely have no problem in building hotels to accomodate the Olympic family and visitors.
A disappointing aspect of the Asian Games was the poor crowd attendance at most events.
Even competitions like athletics or swimming, where some of the best athletes in the world were competing, were held in near-empty stadiums and halls - a fact that would not have escaped Olympic observers.
The appearance of so many African-born athletes in the teams of Qatar and Bahrain left a sour taste with several other countries and is something that will continue to be a debating point.
Security fears that were raised before the Games were shown to have been unnecessary, as the Games passed without incident - something the organizers had predicted beforehand.
On a sad note, the equestrian events were overshadowed by the death of South Korean rider Kim Hyung Chil, who died when his his horse fell on him during the cross-country component of the eventing competition.
His death prompted the president of the South Korean Olympic Committee Kim Jung Kil demanding that organizers hold an inquiry to determine whether his death 'had something to do with the rain or the mismanagement of the competition.'
But despite Kim's death, the 15th Asian Games will be remembered for having set a new benchmark not only for the organizing of the Asian Games, but for the organizing of any major sporting event.
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