The 19th Summer Asian Games opened in Hangzhou on Saturday, which will be followed for two weeks in many countries around the world, including Turkmenistan, which delegated its team to this largest sports festival of the quadrennial, reports the website “Turkmenistan: Golden Age”.

The decision to hold the current Asian Games was made on September 16, 2015 in Ashgabat during the 34th General Assembly of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). Thus, Hangzhou became the third city in China after Beijing (1990) and Guangzhou (2010) to host the Asian Games. Let us recall that the 19th Asian Games were originally planned to be held from September 10 to 25, 2022, but the executive committee of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) decided to postpone them due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three robots were chosen as the mascots of the 19th Summer Asian Games: Chenchen, Kongkong and Lianlian. All of them are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Until October 8, competitions will be held in 40 sports in 61 disciplines, in which 11,934 athletes from 45 countries will compete for 481 sets of medals. In addition, 74 tickets to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris will be raffled off in 9 sports, including archery and tennis. Turkmen athletes, as is known, will perform in 3x3 basketball, boxing, freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, jiu-jitsu, judo, kurash wrestling, karate, athletics, swimming, weightlifting and wushu.

The opening ceremony of the 19th Summer Asian Games took place at the stadium of the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center, called the “Big Lotus” and accommodating 80 thousand spectators.

Official delegations walked through the stadium arena in alphabetical order. The parade was opened by the Afghan delegation. Together with her, all the teams of 45 participating countries of the Asian Games are marching to endless applause. Among them is the national team of Turkmenistan. The column of Turkmen athletes is led by standard bearers - swimmer, Turkmenistan record holder in the “long and short course” at distances of 50, 100 and 200 meters on the backstroke, finalist of the 2014 Asian Games in the 100-meter dash in Incheon Merdan Atayev and judoka, two-time winner of the Junior Asian Cup in Almaty and Tashkent, silver medalist of the Junior European Cup 2023 in Sarajevo and bronze medalist of the Asian Open tournament in Kuwait Maisa Pardaeva. Turkmen athletes are participating as an independent team at large-scale continental Games for the eighth time.

During the ceremony, the mayor of Hangzhou, Secretary General of the Organizing Committee of the 19th Summer Asian Games Yao Gaoyuan and Acting President of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) Raja Randhir Singh addressed the audience with welcoming speeches, who highly appreciated the efforts of the Asian Games Organizing Committee in preparing for this sports festival.

“You have done a fantastic job preparing for the Asian Games. The postponement of one year due to the pandemic is unprecedented in the history of the OCA, but your diligence and determination will bear fruit over the next 16 days and you will be rewarded with the most magnificent and successful Asian Games ever,” said R.R. Singh.

The opening ceremony was also attended by the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, as well as heads of state and government of many countries.

General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of China Xi Jinping declares the 19th Summer Asian Games open.

The climax of the Asian Games opening ceremony was the unprecedented digital lighting of the cauldron, when millions of torchbearers turned a digital flame into a digital human figure on the Qiantangjiang River, which lit the cauldron with the first ever Asian swimmer to win Olympic gold in Tokyo in the 200-meter individual medley. Wang Shun, the last of the six athletes to pass the baton to the real flame in the stadium.

Another highlight of the opening ceremony was the sensational smokeless fireworks display. Traditional fireworks were abandoned in order to fight for the environment.

The final chord of the colorful opening ceremony was the official anthem of the competition. It was a song whose title translates as “The love we share.”