Daily Times

LAHORE: The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will meet with representatives from the National Olympic Committees of Korea and DPR Korea in Jakarta, Indonesia on June 28, Thursday, (today) to discuss joint participation in the 18th Asian Games. The two Koreas have already agreed to march together in the opening ceremony on August 18 behind the Unification Flag, and the discussions will now focus on the possibility of unified Korean teams in certain sports. The meeting today follows discussions between the President of the OCA, HE Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah, with the two National Olympic Committees (NOCs) in Lausanne, Switzerland, on June 23. The OCA will be represented by Vinod Kumar Tiwari, Director of International and NOC Relations, who said in a statement on Wednesday: “The OCA is looking forward to meeting with the representatives of the NOCs of Korea and DPR Korea and discussing the next step of this joint cooperation. It is very exciting times on the Korean Peninsula and sport is playing a major role in bringing the two Koreas together in an environment of peace and understanding. We hope that this cooperation will grow stronger in the build-up to the 18th Asian Games and lead to a truly memorable and historic event.”

The 18th Asian Games will be held in Jakarta and Palembang, capital of South Sumatra province, from August 18 to September 2, 2018, with 10,000 athletes from the OCA’s 45 member NOCs. There will be 40 sports and 67 disciplines. The joint march by athletes will be the 11th time the two Koreas have marched together in an opening ceremony parade of a multi-sport games. The first was at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the most recent at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Korea, last February. They also included the Asian Games in Busan, Korea, in 2002 and in Doha, Qatar in 2006. The PyeongChang Winter Olympics was ground-breaking, however, because the two Koreas played as a unified team in the women’s ice hockey competition. This was the first time they had competed together in a multi-sport event, and the OCA is now preparing for joint teams in certain sports at Jakarta
and Palembang.

Published in Daily Times, June 28^th 2018.