The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) is taking steps to make the Asian Games more manageable by introducing qualification criteria for participating teams. This decision comes after the Games saw a record number of athletes, exceeding 15,000 participants at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023. The increasing scale has become a burden for host nations, prompting the OCA to seek ways to control the size of the event.
The OCA’s deputy director general, Vinod Tiwari, highlighted the discussions held with various sports federations, including the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), to implement qualification systems. The goal is to reduce the number of teams participating in team sports, particularly in events like football, where the number of competing nations has been significant.
India could potentially be impacted by this new qualification system, as its men’s and women’s football teams have previously qualified for the Games despite not meeting the required rankings. In the past, special appeals to the sports ministry secured their participation.
Tiwari emphasized the challenges posed by the growing number of athletes, particularly for the upcoming Asian Games in Japan in 2026. He stated that accommodating 15,000 athletes in Japan would be nearly impossible.
The OCA aims to implement this qualification system for the Nagoya Asian Games, focusing on reducing the number of events and team sports participants. The new system will only allow teams that meet the established qualification standards to participate. However, the OCA is open to considering special requests, although no guarantees are given.
Alongside these changes, the OCA is also working to include yoga as an Asian Games sport. The proposal has been approved by the OCA’s sports committee and executive board, and final approval is expected at the OCA General Assembly on September 8th. If approved, yoga will likely be introduced as a demonstration sport at the Nagoya Games and could potentially be fully integrated into the Asian Games program in the future.
