Opinion | Left Field: 2023 Asian Games look out of reach for Hong Kong
Back-door deal means Dubai will likely win the vote, leaving Hong Kong to look much further into the future to host showpiece
Many of the bigwigs on the Olympic Council of Asia executive board - 37 to be exact - didn't return home straight after the end of the 31st general assembly in Macau. Instead, they made a detour through Nansha in Guangzhou, where they attended the extended wedding nuptials yesterday of former China diving queen Guo Jingjing and Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, eldest son of Hong Kong Olympic chief Timothy Fok Tsun-ting.
It would have offered Tim Fok an excellent opportunity to canvas for the views of his peers - there are 14 vice-presidents on the OCA - on the possibility of Hong Kong hosting the 2023 Asian Games.
The late patriarch and billionaire Henry Fok Ying-tung transformed Nansha into a family fiefdom and the Nansha Grand Hotel is just one of the many properties the Foks own in Guangzhou. It was here that the top officials of the OCA - all, like Fok, presidents of their respective national Olympic committees - were royally wined, dined and housed.
The chance to press the flesh in the shadow of the celebrity wedding and push for a Hong Kong 2023 Asian Games would have been ideal if not for one spanner in the works - Dubai's decision to pull out of the 2019 race, which was decided this week with Hanoi winning the vote.
Dubai, Hanoi and Surabaya were the three candidates for 2019. But on the eve of the general assembly, OCA president Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah let it slip that only two bids - the Vietnamese capital and Indonesia's second-largest city - remained.
Just before the 44-strong electoral college (there are 45 countries and territories in Asia, but India failed to turn up) began to vote, Sheikh Ahmad confirmed Dubai's withdrawal. He said: "They will bid in the future".
Hanoi, despite a poor final presentation, went on to beat Surabaya, prompting many observers to believe that the race had been decided before it began. If you watched Sacha Baron Cohen in , there is a scene where he runs the 100 metres while shooting competitors ahead of him and with the finish tape being brought to him. That scene gives you an idea of how "fixed" the 2019 Asian Games vote might have been.
