(ATR) Olympic Council of Asia president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah has been re-elected for another four-year term by his Asian NOC peers.
The Kuwaiti IOC member and ANOC president – who has been at the helm of the OCA since 1991 – ran for re-election un-opposed.
Delegates from the 45 Asian NOCs granted their approval by acclamation on Wednesday (September 16) at the OCA General Assembly in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
The election was a mere formality, taking just a few short minutes after IOC member Robin Mitchell of Fiji introduced Sheikh-Ahmad as the lone candidate.
"It was a very difficult election, thank you very much," joked Sheikh Ahmad to the room after receiving a rapturous applause.
"To continue the position after a long period is added responsibility," he told reporters following the close of the two-day General Assembly. "Our success had been done in this organization, but always the dream of the people will never stop – they always want new things added in this house."
Sheikh Ahmad discussed Asia’s unprecedented task and enormous responsibility of hosting three successive Olympic Games between 2018 – 2022.
"Asia will have three Olympic Games after Rio and for that, Asia is not just for Asia, but it will become more international," the Sheikh said referring to PyeongChang 2018, Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022. "We have to secure the success of our Games and the stability of our income."
The 52-year-old OCA leader also advised of his aims and goals to move the organization into the future.
"I think the new vision for us is youth and technology," he said.
"This is the sector that we can still do more because there is a lot in this sector that we didn’t discover until now, not only us, but a lot of other sport organizations."
"Related to Agenda 2020, we will aim high."
Finally, Sheikh spoke about the Chinese coastal city of Hangzhou, which was awarded the 2022 Asian Games on Wednesday.
"We will do a smart games in 2022, remember this," he said. "This is my promise for the Asian 2022 Games.
OCA Vice-President Elections
In addition to Sheikh Ahmad’s re-election for OCA presidency, nine delegates won vice-president seats on Wednesday.
Timothy Fok of Hong Kong for the OCA’s east Asia region, Termirkhan Dosmukhambetov of Kazakhstan for central Asia, Seyed Arif Hasan of Pakistan for south Asia, Charouck Arirachakran of Thailand for southeast Asia and Sheikh Issa Bin Rashid Al-Khalifa of Bahrain for west Asia were all re-elected.
Hoang Vinh Giang of Vietnam was appointed as vice-president for the 2016 Asian Beach Games in DaNang, Tsunekazu Takeda of Japan for the 2017 Asian Winter Games in Sapporo, Sapardurdy Toylyyev of Turkmenistan for the 2017 Ashgabat Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games and Rito Subowo of Indonesia for the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games.
Written by Brian Pinelli in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
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