Taiwan, Surabaya, Dubai & Abu Dhabi Leading Candidate To Host 2019 Asia Games

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 (Bernama) -- Taiwan, Surabaya, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are now the leading candidates to host the 2019 Asian Games. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are offering to be joint hosts for the Games. According to the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) website, the Olympic committees of Taiwan, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had submitted bids for the cities to be the hosts. The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will select the host city at its general assembly in Macau on Nov 3. The OCA's Media Committee chairman, Charles Lo said the chances for all cities involved for the selection were equal but monitoring would be made before the assembly in Macau. Incheon City in South Korea will host the 2014 Asian Games. Besides the bids for the Asia Games, the OCA Media Committee also received nominations from Doha (Qatar) and Tokyo (Japan) to host the 2020 Oylmpic Games. After the 2012 Olympics in London in July, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will host the world's biggest Games in 2016. The website also said that Manila was chosen as the venue for the 100 years Asia Games celebration as the Philippine capital's was the first to host the Games that was formely known as the "Oriental Games". -- BERNAMA