DNA
 
NEW DELHI, April 18: After all the lofty claims by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) over New Delhi’s bid for the 2014 Asian Games, dark horse Incheon has emerged winner. The bid was decided after a voting amongst 45 members of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) in Kuwait City on Tuesday.

The choice of the OCA countries is a shock for most IOA officials. IOA secretary-general Randhir Singh holds an influential post in the OCA — on Monday he was appointed as its secretary-general for a fifth term.

IOA president Suresh Kalmadi had boasted that India would get at least 25 votes (it needed 23 to win). Now South Korea have dealt a serious blow to India’s aspiration to be the next continental hub for organising major events after China.

The setback is already creating wedges between the IOA and Union Sports Minister Mani Shanker Aiyer, who is not a Games-enthusiast and does not support efforts to host sporting extravaganzas. Kalmadi wasted no time to blame Aiyer. “We looked divided  because of the Sports Minister’s comments which appeared in newspapers also,” he said after India lost the bid.

Now that India has lost to South Korea, various theories will be forwarded to explain the defeat — that India’s presentation before OCA did not put a figure on the costs towards training, equipment and other facilities etc. But, there was overconfidence in the Indian camp after winning the 2010 CWG bid against Canada.

The reasons for Incheon’s win are many  — South Korea had successfully hosted the Olympics in 1988, their athletes’ performance in Olympics, Asian Games and World Championship has been always superior to India’s. Lastly two reasons why Korea treated it as a grudge fight and desperately wanted to win. In the 2002 Asian Games, hosted by Busan (Korea), India’s campaign to save athlete Sunita Rani from doping charges had ended in humiliation for Korea. As a result, the Busan lab’s accreditation was taken away by the International Olympic Council (IOC).

The other reason is Chinese premier Wen Jiabao batted for Incheon — 80 km from South Korean capital Seoul — at the last minute although Beijing had earlier assured its