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The 16th edition of the Asian Games will see 45 countries vying for supremacy in as many as 42 games.
Fourteen of these 42 games, including cricket, kabaddi and judo are not very popular in China and this booming southern city is planning to organise promotional events to familiarise the locals with these games, organisers say.
“Cricket and kabaddi have not featured in Olympic games but will be part of the Asian Games. We hope the Asian audience will appreciate this,” Xu Rui Sheng, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou Municipality said.
To promote and popularise these sports in the country, the local organisers plan to organise tournaments for residents and even invite athletes from India. “Besides cricket, we have also have to do some promotional events for kabaddi, invite athletes from India and they are warmly welcome by Guanzhou citizens and stimulate enthusiasm of the citizens here,” he said.
He said the city authorities have also formed some kabaddi teams among University students to promote the game, besides that of cricket.
Besides massive construction work on venues and facilities, work is on on China’s first world scale cricket ground.