ASIAN GAMES OPENED

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27339, 3 May 1954, Page 9

ASIAN GAMES OPENED

Colourful Ceremony

(Rec. 7 p.m.) MANILA, May 2. President Ramon. Magsaysay yesterday’ opened the nine-day second Asian Games in a colourful Oriental ceremony and a spirit of inter-Asian goodwill and friendly competition. About 20,000 spectators stood and cheered when President Magsaysay made his opening declaration. Then the teams from 18 countries paraded. More than 1000 competitors are competing from Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, .China. Hong Hong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Malaya, North Borneo, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Siam and Vietnam. Mr Jorge Vargas, the Asian Games president, called for unity, goodwill, friendship and honest competition among Asian nations and said he hoped earnestly this would be the oqteome of closer cultural relations promoted through the Asian Games. Choi Yun Chil, of Korea, today broke the Asian Games record in the final of the 1500 metres, winning the event in 3min 56.25ec, compared with Mikka Singh’s time of 4min 4sec for India at New Delhi in 1951. Atsuko Nanbu, of Japan, also established a new record in the third heat of the women’s 100 metre dash of 12.5 sec, one-tenth of a second better than the New Delhi games record established by Sugimura Kiyako, also of Japan.