LAUSANNE: The decision to award the 2029 Asian Winter Games to Saudi Arabia may have been greeted with amazement but it follows a double logic. "It is awful for our sport," Olympic downhill silver medallist Johan Clarey told French radio. In 2021, Dubai hosted qualifying slaloms for the Beijing Winter Olympics in the refrigerated dome of a huge shopping mall with the temperature 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) outside. Saudi investors have bought English football club Newcastle and are financing the breakaway LIV golf tour. Yet the objective of Asian Games is "above all economic," Raphael Le Magoariec, a specialist in the geopolitics of the sport of the Gulf countries at the University of Tours, said.

Source: Manila Times October 07, 2022 04:07 UTC