Asian Para Games: Sport is the Unifying Language for Indonesia
7 October 2018 09:52 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia`s 2018 Asian Para Games Organizing Committee chairman Raja Sapta Oktohari said at the opening of the Asian Para Games event on Saturday that sport is a unifying language for Indonesia.
"[The sport event] even made two rivals of presidential election candidates to hug each other," he said, referring to an event when a winning Indonesian martial artist ran up to President Jokowi and Prabowo Subianto to hug them together in the recently held Asian Games event.
Okto said that Indonesia still felt the happness it experienced during the Asian Games event.
"Today, on October 7, 2018 we will again witness a new history in which is Indonesia being the host of Asian Para Games for the first time," he said.
He continued on saying that the Asian Para Games has become the most prestigious event for disabled people in Asia.
"In the multi-sport event we do not only compete to win but through it we also uphold sporting spirit, solidarity, humanity and harmonioous relations between countries in Asia," he said.
A total of 2,762 athletes from 43 countries take part in 512 events from 18 sport branches in addition to 16 non-medal sports of para athletic and para swimming events.
This is the third Asian Para Games event being held after the first was held in Guangzhou, China in 2010, and the second time was held in Incheon, South Korea, in 2014.
ANTARA
