East Asian Games to transform into youth version

TIANJIN - The 6th East Asian Games (EAG) to be opened here on Sunday will be the last edition as the regional sports top officials are planing to transform the quadrennial Games into a youth version.

The 31st Council meeting of the East Asian Games Association (EAGA) was held here on Saturday afternoon. The main purpose of the assembly will be deliberate and approve the charter revision draft of the EAGA, a core part of the reform proposal passed by the EAGA during the 30th council meeting in May.

According to the reform proposal, a regional youth sports meet, featuring athletes aging from 14 to 18, will replace the current EAG to be staged as the most important sports tournament in East Asia once every four years.

The inaugural East Asian Youth Games will be staged in 2019 and the host of the new sports event, as well as the date, is yet to be decided.

The East Asian Games is a multi-sport event organized by the EAGA and held every four years since 1993. The participating delegations are the eight East Asian countries and regions of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), namely China, Japan, South Korea, DPR Korea, Mongalia, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, China and Macao, China, as well as the Pacific island of Guam, which is a member of the Oceania National Olympic Committees.

Kazakhstan, a former member of the EAGA, participated in the second EAG in Busan, South Korea in 1997 and Australia was invited to compete in the third edition in Osaka, Japan in 2001.