Asia is the biggest continent. There are many countries and most of them, like China and India, are thickly populated. In the Olympics and other world meets relating to games and sports, Asia countries are not performing well, compared with European and American countries.
A conference was held at New Delhi in 1947 to discuss the various issues, arising among various Asian countries. It was then decided to organize games and sports meet, exclusively for Asian countries to develop mutual friendship and cordial relations on the lines of Olympic Games.
The first meet of Asian games was held at New Delhi in 1951. Prof. G.D. Sondhu was the brain behind the Asian Games. 11 counties participated in the first meet in 1951. They were (1) Afghanistan, (2) Burma, (3) Sri Lanka, (4) Indonesia, (6) Iran, (7) Japan, (8) Malaysia, (9) Philippines, (10) Singapore and 11) Thailand. There were six disciplines:
India played host for Asian Games for the third time in 1982. Then 32 nations took part in the meet. 27 earlier records, 16 in the men’s section and 11 in the women’s section – were broken at that meet. Among Indians who brought honours to the country is (1) Bahadur Singh in shot-put, (2) Chand Ram in 20 Kms. Walking and (3) Valasamma in 400 M. Hurdlesal though India is second in population, it could get only the fifth place in getting medals. China was at the top getting 61 gold, 51 silver and 41 bronze medals. Japan got the second place. The third and fourth places went to South Korea and North Korea. India got fifth place with 13 gold, 19 silver and 25 bronze medals.