体坛英语新闻：Call for Olympic Council of Asia to curb nationality switches

BANGKOK, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- A call for a review into athletes who switch nationality to compete for new countries topped the agenda at Thursday's Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) advisory meeting here, as well as discussion over the "size, scale and cost" of the Asian Games.

The first debate came one month after the close of the Asian Games in Incheon where 14 of the 22 individual running events were won by athletes of African origin who had switched nationality, either to Bahrain, Qatar or United Arab Emirates.

Nigeria-born Femi Ogunode competed for Qatar at Incheon 2014 and set an Asian record time of 9.93 seconds to win the 100 meters and added with a 200m title.

Moroccan born Mohamad Al-Garni also achieved the 1500m and 5,000m double for Qatar, while Kemi Adekoya won both the women's 400m and 400m hurdles after switching from Nigeria to Bahrain earlier this year.

The Advisory Committee, which consists of all the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members from Asia, and was chaired by Singapore's Ser Miang Ng, raised several concerns from National Olympic Committees who had lost medals due to athletes of non-Asian origin.

A second recommendation calling for a review into the size, scale and cost of the Asian Games was also suggested, following recent reluctance to bid for major continental sporting events.

Hanoi, who was initially chosen to host the 2019 Asian Games, pulled out in April this year citing "economic pressures", leading to Indonesian capital Jakarta stepping in. Indonesia asked to hold the Games a year earlier to avoid a clash with Presidential elections in the country.