One year from now, Nanjing will be saying goodbye to the second Asian Youth Games, signifying that the big countdown is on, to 2014 and the Youth Olympics! While much is being made of the latter, the former has until now been somewhat hiding in the shadows.
With less than 365 days to go, Nanjing is moving into top gear in its preparation for the Games since being awarded the hosting rights on 13th November, 2010 by the Olympic Council of Asia. The games’ slogan, “Celebrating Youth, Passionate Asia” and the official emblem have started popping up all across the city; on construction sites, landmark buildings, advertising hoardings, the backs of buses and even major bridges. The emblem is the winning design selected from 155 entries and is based upon the Chinese character “Ning” (?) that is the abbreviation for Nanjing. Within it lie a distant mountain, a flowing river, the city walls and green leaves.
Just as with Singapore in 2010, the Asian Youth Games serve as a dress rehearsal for the Youth Olympics in 2014; an opportunity to test out the venues, support infrastructure and volunteer activities.
The main venue shall be the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center that first played host to a major sporting event in 2005 for the China Games. Between ten and fifteen thousand volunteers shall be sought, largely from local middle schools, colleges and universities. Valuable work experience lies in store for them as they assist with as much of the event organization as possible, including the provision of medical, traffic, interpretation and media services.
Six disciplines have been added to the Nanjing Games over those on display in Singapore in 2010, making for a total of 15, although aquatics constitutes both swimming and diving. The complete list of disciplines is aquatics, athletics, badminton, basketball (three-on-three), fencing, football, golf, handball, judo, rugby, shooting, squash, table tennis, tennis and weightlifting. It is expected that present be 45 different nations, bringing with them some 3,500 athletes, coaches and team officials. They shall largely be accommodated within a new residential zone at the Nanjing University of Technology.
While frugality is one of the themes of the Asian Games, everything nevertheless has a price. Exact details of the financing for 2013 at this point remain murky but as a benchmark the organisation of the 2009 Games, spearheaded by the Singapore Sports Council, cost S$15 million (
