All eyes set on Pearl River for Asian Games closing ceremony, to begin at 17:30 hrs IST

THE ASIAN Games 2010 held in Guangzhou, China opened to the world in a grand ceremony with never seen before LED lightings and firecrackers playing a major part.

The fourteen-day gala event, where even India broke all records and won many “first-ever” medals, will bring the curtains down today at 17:30 hrs IST. The ceremony will reportedly be more subtle as the hosts send off the athletes in a warm ceremony.  The games’ closing ceremony will feature at the same venue as the opening ceremony that is the Haixinsha Square on the Pearl River. It will be a three-hour performance event concluding with the flag handover for the 2014 Asian Games, to be held in Incheon, South Korea.
Famous Asian pop star Rain (Jung Ji-Hoon) will perform three songs in the event. In all eight songs have been picked for the ceremony representing the eastern, western, southern, northern and central parts of the continent. The idea behind this is to display Asia as a whole and emerging power, said one of the organisers. An Indian musician Ravi K Tripathi is also going to perform at the ceremony. He will be singing the famous A R Rahman number ‘”Jai Ho” and two other songs.
Similar to the opening ceremony, the closing will also feature water bodies as an important part. There will be interesting formations and use of the cauldron, which was lighted by firecrackers in the opening ceremony, among other things.  The whole ceremony will come to cost around $53 million, as per sources.

India has managed to pull of the best-ever Asian Games haul, since 1982 Asiad. Our athletes clinched a total of 64 medals comprising 14 gold, 17 silver and 33 bronze. This is the highest number of gold medals won since the first Asian Games held in 1951. India is on the sixth position and has superseded Thailand as well as Malaysia.

 

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