Does anyone know that the Asian Games are around the corner?

The flame, which was lit in New Delhi on August 9 and merged with the flame at Mount Manisan in Incheon on August 12, commenced its journey across 17 cities in South Korea. On September 19, the torch relay will culminate in the Games stadium where the cauldron will be lit marking the confluence of Asian athletes. The Games Flame will be extinguished on October 4 during the closing ceremony.

Incheon will be the third city in South Korea to host the Asiad, a multi-sport event held every four years, after Seoul and Busan in 1986 and 2002 respectively. The Games will feature a total of 439 events in 36 sports and disciplines, eight of which will be non-Olympic sports consisting of baseball, ten-pin bowling, cricket, kabaddi, karate-do, sepak takraw, squash and wushu.

For their part, the organisers of the Incheon Games have launched an official website www.incheon2014ag.org/index?lang=en, but sports enthusiasts know very little about the Games. Less than 20 per cent of Thai fans know that the Games are going to be held in Incheon. What about the schedule? Less than three per cent are aware that the Games will be organised from September 19 to October 4.

Thailand is a sports-loving nation but the political turmoil has cast a huge shadow over the enthusiasm of the people. They were downhearted because of the political uncertainty, state of the economy and their own future. The financial support from sponsors and the government to Thai athletes preparing for the Asian Games was ambiguous to say the least until the National Council for Peace and Order stepped in to clear clouds of uncertainty. Since then, the morale of Thai athletes has increased considerably.

Thai media was just as culpable as the organisers in not popularising the Games. The sport fans were fed with daily diet of international badminton events, Thai Premier League Football, the Fifa World Cup in Brazil, the taekwondo scandal involving South Korean coach Choi Young-seuk and Rungrawee Khurasa. Contents about Asian Games and the athletes who will make a splash have been completely absent in Thai media. Only a few TV channels have announced that they will be there in South Korea to televise the Games.

Recently, the Asian Games Organising Committee wanted to show that they are fully prepared for the event and invited some Thai journalists to visit the state-of-the-art competition sites. In the days to come, the media may wake up from its slumber and start highlighting the Games. The faster they do, it is better for the future of the Games in Asia. Or else the Incheon Games will be the beginning of a slow and painful death of the event.