It gives me great pleasure, as President of the Olympic Council of Asia, to greet you all a Happy New Year 2025 on behalf of the OCA.
After a busy 2024, which included the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, Korea and the Olympic Games in Paris, the OCA is already deep in preparation for two of our own major multi-sport events in 2025.
Coming soon is the ninth edition of our Asian Winter Games, in Harbin, China from February 7-14, 2025. Harbin 2025 will see record entries in both the number of National Olympic Committees taking part and number of athletes.
There will be 33 NOCs from all five zones of the OCA and 1,256 athletes, beating the previous marks at the 8th AWG in Sapporo, Japan in 2017, when 1,147 athletes represented 32 NOCs, including two guest NOCs from Oceania in Australia and New Zealand.
The increase of three Asian NOCs, and 109 athletes, highlights the efforts of the OCA to develop winter sports throughout Asia. The athletes will come from established winter sports powers in East Asia and Central Asia and also from desert countries in West Asia and tropical countries in Southeast Asia, highlighting the unity in diversity of the Asian continent.
With China’s vast experience in organising international multi-sport games, including two previous Asian Winter Games and the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, the OCA is confident that the 9th Asian Winter Games Harbin 2025 will benefit from the explosion of interest in winter sports in China and write another chapter in the winter sports success story.
The OCA’s second major multi-sport event of 2025 will be the third Asian Youth Games, to be held in the Kingdom of Bahrain in the fourth quarter of the year.
This will also break new ground for the OCA, as it will be the first time for Bahrain to host an OCA event in our portfolio of five multi-sport games: Asian Games, Asian Winter Games, Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, Asian Beach Games and Asian Youth Games.
Bahrain stepped in at short notice to assume hosting rights, and the Bahrain Olympic Committee will have the full support of the leaders and the government to provide top-class competition venues, accommodation and services for our young athletes.
Throughout the year, the OCA will also focus on important issues behind the scenes which are vital for the future of sport, not just in Asia but on a global scale.
In late 2024, the OCA launched the “Guarding the Asian Games” initiative with four main pillars: the safeguarding of athletes, anti-doping, the prevention of manipulation of competition (PMC) and Olympic values education.
We will present and promote these four key themes at every opportunity in order to keep sport safe for our athletes, keep sport clean and true, maintain the spirit of fair play and also to stamp out the scourge of match-fixing and PMC.
The OCA, our 45 National Olympic Committees, sponsors, media and all stakeholders in the Asian Olympic Movement have much to look forward to in 2025.
In keeping with the OCA motto, and in deference to the new twist on the IOC motto, let’s move “Ever Onward – Together!”
Happy New Year 2025!