Kuwait City, Kuwait, July 13, 2023: The Olympic Council of Asia will be conducting a webinar on the prevention of manipulation of competitions in the build-up to the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China this September.
The webinar, which will be held in conjunction with the Olympic Movement Unit on the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions (OM Unit PMC), will take place virtually on Thursday, July 27.
The OCA announced plans for a webinar on the prevention of competition manipulation during the Chefs de Mission Seminar for the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou in April, and all CDMs have been invited to take part.
In a circular sent to Asia’s 45 National Olympic Committees dated July 13, the OCA’s Director of International and NOC Relations, Mr. Vinod Kumar Tiwari, said: “The OCA and OM Unit PMC fuels the development of sport and supports the work of NOCs to inspire and protect the next generation of athletes in the Asian continent.
“OCA is keen to support athletes and their entourage in line with the IOC’s strategic roadmap, Olympic Agenda 2020+5, targeting and focusing on Recommendation 5, which states: ‘Further strengthen safe sport and the protection of clean athletes - Expand current efforts to protect clean athletes’.
“With a view to supporting this outcome - and as we are less than two months away from the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 - OCA and OM Unit PMC are jointly organising a webinar with the participation of Interpol for the Asian NOCs, specifically for all Chef de Missions (CDMs) for the next Asian Games.
“The webinar will focus on tackling the threat posed by manipulation of sports competitions and the process that will be applied for the first time in the Asian Games for the fight against the Manipulation of Competitions focusing on Pillar 3 - Intelligence, Monitoring and Investigation.”
Mr. Tiwari added that the two-hour webinar, which will start at 10am Kuwait time (GMT+3) on July 27, seeks to raise awareness among the NOCs and CDMs on this matter, and notably analyse the steps that NOCs follow and need to take in order to prevent relevant risks of any kind of manipulation in the next Asian Games.
The OCA is requesting NOCs to register their CDMs for the webinar via the following link by July 24: http://Ocasia.co.
The webinar will also be open for National Federations affiliated to each NOC that are competing in the 19th Asian Games, which will run from September 23 to October 8, 2023.
The speakers at the webinar include Evangelos Alexandrakis (OM Unit PMC), Tony Tarraf (Head of Athletes Development Department and Special Projects, OCA), Rida Ahmed (Awareness-Raising Coordinator, OM Unit PMC), Dieter Braekeveld (Interpol) and Aiden Young (OM Unit PMC supporting intelligence and monitoring of competitions).