Asian Olympic Committee Sets Conditions for Athletes' Committee Elections

The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) has announced the details of the elections for its Athletes’ Commission, scheduled to take place during the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from September 19 to October 4, 2026.

Hussain Al-Musallam, the OCA’s Director General, clarified in a circular sent to the 45 member National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that the elections will fill four seats on the OCA Athletes’ Commission during the Asian Games. These seats will be distributed across four of the Council’s geographical regions: West Asia (one female athlete), Central Asia (one male athlete), East Asia (one male athlete), and Southeast Asia (one female athlete). There are no nomination requests for the South Asia region, which is currently represented by an athlete from the Indian Olympic Committee.

The OCA hopes that National Olympic Committees will raise awareness among their athletes participating in the Asian Games about the importance of these elections.

Al-Musallam stated, “National Olympic Committees in the four aforementioned regions are requested to submit nominations only for the gender specified for their respective seats, in order to promote gender equality and balanced representation within the OCA Athletes’ Commission.”

Al-Musallam noted that athletes who participated in the last two editions of the Summer Asian Games—Jakarta and Palembang 2018, and Hangzhou 2022—are eligible to run for these seats, provided they have also competed in one of the Summer Olympic Games.

Furthermore, to ensure broader representation for all Council members, National Olympic Committees currently represented on the Athletes’ Commission are not permitted to nominate another representative during the elections. Consequently, the National Olympic Committees of Saudi Arabia, India, China, Hong Kong China, and Singapore are ineligible to submit nominations for their own representation.