Speaking with Global Times reporters during an interview on Thursday, the Acting President for the Olympic Committee of Asia (OCA) stressed that politics should be kept separated from sports during the international sport events.
“Politics is politics, and sports is sports. They should not be mixed,” said the OCA Acting President Randhir Singh, answering questions from the Global Times reporters in a face-to-face interview in Hangzhou on Thursday.
“Politics should be kept separately, while we are here to promote friendship and love between each other,” Singh noted. “It is not a time for politics. This is 15 days or a month that one can keep the politics away and participate and enjoy the Games.”
Talking to the Global Times, Singh once again recognized the cooperation between the OCA and Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (HAGOC).
“When the Games is allotted to a country, you have the organizing committee and you have the OCA,” he said. “But the HAGOC and the OCA have worked so closely together [this time].”
Singh described their relations “like one family.”
“This is no OCA or the organizing committee. It is one Asian Games family,” he noted. “This is the most beautiful part of the Games.”
The OCA acting president was also impressed by Team China’s performance in the Games so far. As of Thursday, the delegation has bagged a total of 90 gold medals in just four days.
“It shows the phenomenal growth of sports in China,” he said. “The Chinese system for training athletes and the academies has good results. Maybe the rest of Asia should follow.”
Singh, who competed in four Asian Games from 1978 to 1994 and five Olympics from 1972 to 1984, said that he deeply felt the progress of Chinese athletes because he witnessed it personally.
Speaking highly of Hangzhou as a modern city, Singh said that the beautiful infrastructure will become a biggest legacy for the city after the Asian Games.
“The venues are among the things you can be happy and proud to use in the future,” he told the Global Times. “Hangzhou now has a tremendous organizing capacity. Why can’t you hold more games?”
Singh also shared the OCA’s vision to help with the unbalanced sports development in different parts of the continent.
“We have a certain amount of sports development program through which we can help,” he said. “Basically, the national committees should build the athletes, and we can guide them or we can help them to get coaches.”
The remarks were made during a face-to-face interview held on Thursday morning at the Hangzhou Olympics Sports Center.
(Global Times)
