A Singapore bid to host the Asian Games "appeared unlikely"
despite its successful Southeast Asian Games held in
state-of-the-art facilities this month, according to the AFP. Senior sports officials
"gave a thumbs-down to an Asiad in Singapore," signaling that hosting
Asia's version of the Olympics was not in the city-state's sights. The costs of organizing an Asian Games are prohibitive, "as seen last year when Hanoi pulled out of hosting the 2018 edition." Team Singapore Chef de Mission Tan Eng Liang said, "I
do not see us spending a lot of money just to hold the Asian Games. Personally, I do not see how Asian Games will
contribute very significantly despite the amount of cost and the
organization that are needed." Singapore
"already has much of the infrastructure for major sports events" after
the completion of its $1B Sports Hub last year. But Singapore Sports Institute Head Bob
Gambardella said that Singapore's
strategy "was to host single, high-level events rather than multi-sport
showpieces." He said, "I think what we're looking at [is] single major
international events like the WTA [Finals] and ways in which we can
leverage off that kind of a tournament over the next four years to
catalyze the sport in the country" (AFP, 6/16).
