ProMASS News Bureau: Feb 4, 2016:
The 12th South Asian Games will open in Guwahati tomorrow. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the 11-day event at the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium in the Assam capital. The Games are being jointly hosted by Guwahati and Meghalaya capital, Shillong. Over 2,500 athletes from 8 SAARC nations – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives – will take part in the event. A total of 228 events in 23 sports disciplines will be played during the games, which India is hosting for the third time.
Known, in times past, as the South Asian Federation Games, the South Asian Games or SAG have often been described as the South Asian version of the Olympics. India, which first hosted the Games in 1987 in the then Calcutta, has ruled over this multi-sport event right from the beginning. Among the 8 SAARC nations, India has bagged the most number of medals – 1,728 which includes 900 Gold.
It had been at the top of the medals tally on all the 11 previous occasions. Pakistan is second in the list, with Sri Lanka at third. In the last edition of the games held in 2010 in Dhaka, India had won 90 Gold, 55 Silver and 30 Bronze. It’s best performance came in 2006 in Colombo, when it claimed a record 214 medals, including 118 Gold. The Indian contingent will be eager to set new records, especially with SAG now returning to India after almost 11 years.
