Gold medallist Sun Yang of China reacts on the podium at an award ceremony after winning the men's 400m freestyle final swimming competition at the Munhak Park Tae-hwan Aquatics Center during the 17th Asian Games in Incheon September 23, 2014.
Gold medallist Sun Yang of China reacts on the podium at an award ceremony after winning the men's 400m freestyle final swimming competition at the Munhak Park Tae-hwan Aquatics Center during the 17th Asian Games in Incheon September 23, 2014. Reuters

The Asian Games may soon rival the scope of the Olympics. Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) President Shiek Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah revealed during the opening ceremonies of this year's edition of the Asian Games that the council is considering the participation of the 18 countries that is a member of the Oceania National Olympic Committee, which includes countries such as Australia and New Zealand. The target year is 2017 and the plan is to allow these countries to compete in the indoor and martial arts games.

"We will slowly try to integrate them and this is the first step. We hope it will be a new success story. We're taking one step at a time," Sheikh Ahmad said. "If successful, the second step could be the Asian Winter Games or Asian Beach Games, possibly leading to the Asian Games."

This development would now have 63 countries vying for 12 events as per Insidethegames.biz. To formalise the agreement, an official signing between the ONOC and OCA is bound to take place in November at Bangkok during the General Assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees.

There have been many signs pointing to the direction of the participation of Oceania countries in Asia-organized events. Case in point, Australia became a member of the Asian Football Confederation in 2006. The Aussies have been using the Asian competition to hone their skills for bigger competitions and this has reaped its fruits, with the country qualifying for the last FIFA World Cups. The following year, Australia also applied for entry into this year's Incheon games but the OCA turned down their bid keeping in mind that it would be unfair to the other Oceania countries.

The move by OCA is being viewed as mutually beneficial to the committee and the new entrants as the organization has been finding it hard to find host countries which could cater to almost 10,000 athletes that would be placed in 36 venues. In the early part of the year, supposed host Hanoi backed off from hosting the 2019 Asian Games due to economic concerns. Jakarta has swooped in and assumed the host country role in its stead. The addition of the 18 countries to the roster could well expand the options for host countries in future competitions.