By Moon Gwang-lip
Staff Reporter
The South Korean port city of Incheon beat New Delhi of India Tuesday night to become the host of the 2014 Asian Games.
In a prolonged vote at its 26th general assembly at the JW Marriott Hotel in Kuwait, 32 out of 45 member countries of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) picked Incheon as the host of the 17th games.
Incheon is now the third Korean city to host the Asian Games following Seoul and Pusan, which organized the event in 1986 and 2002, respectively.
The result of the voting, slated for sometime between 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Korean time, came out around 10 p.m., and was followed by hundreds of firecrackers embroidering the sky.
More than 3,000 Incheon citizens who gathered at a plaza in front of the city hall cheered and hugged each other as they watched subtitles on a large-sized screen indicate that the city had been selected as the winner of the quadrennial sports event.
``I am happy just as any other Incheon citizen,’’ said Lee Soo-hee, a company employee living there.
``Incheon has been a gateway through which many sports were first introduced to Korea. It’s very meaningful to host an international sports event in a place like that,’’ she added
The competition is expected to have an 18.6-trillion-won economic effect and create 270,000 new jobs.
The event will also likely change the landscape of the city with the construction of an athletes’ village, sports parks and a public golf course.
It is uncertain, however, how Incheon’s success will affect PyeongChang, another South Korean city bidding for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Some say that two straight successes by Incheon and Daegu to host international sports events might reduce PyeongChang’s chance to host the 2014 games. Last month, Daegu won the right to host the World Athletics Championships in 2011, beating Brisbane, Australia and Halifax in Canada.
PyeongChang is waiting for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) general meeting in Guatemala on July 4, where the winner among the Kangwon Province city, Austria’s Salzburg and Russia’s Sochi will be decided.
The PyeongChang bid committee downplayed such concern.
``The Olympics and the Asian Games are totally different events. And we don’t think it will affect our bid,’’ said an official of the bid committee.
The 16th Asian Games will be held in 2010 in Guangzhou, China.