An Olympic Spectacle for Ashgabat

Olympic Park Ceremony

For the better part of two hours on a cool Friday evening, hundreds of performers took their turns on a stage underneath the Olympic rings in Ashgabat. The occasion was the laying of the foundation stone for what is supposed to be a $5 billion Olympic Park.

The ceremony was held smack in the middle of the plot of land where the project will be built in three phases. Once completed in 2017, the park is to feature facilities for nearly all the Olympic sports, plus housing for 12,000.

Thousands of Ashgabat school children lined the road leading the event, a brilliant autumn sun above, banners and flags waving. Outside the temporary arena set up for the ceremony, sport demonstrations, including boxing in a full-size ring, were mounted as a pre-event entertainment.

The Olympic rings were in abundance, perched over the proscenium and displayed on a jumbo screen that was the backdrop for the performances.

All this from a country barely 20 years independent, a population of 5 million, rich in natural gas -- and zero Olympic medals.

Turkmenistan President Leads Olympic Push

One of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Turkmenistan has been a generally insular society since independence in 1991. Led for most of the time by President Saparmurat Niyazov, the cultish politician was notorious at the time of his death for shutting the nation’s few hospitals, forcing people needing care, even emergency treatment, to travel to Ashgabat.

His successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, once a dentist and the health minister who presided over the shuttering of the hospitals, took over in 2006. He is credited with opening the country, moving beyond the eccentricities of Niyazov, although he is also the subject of fawning adoration by the public, his visage hanging everywhere, from parks to the cabins of Turkmenistan Airlines aircraft.

And it is Berdymukhamedov, 53, a sports nut who urges health living for his fellow Turkmen, who is behind the effort to build the Olympic Park. He hopes to attract events of Olympic-calibre such as regional games, Asian Games, world championships – and maybe one day, the Olympics.

"This is our dream, to host the world," he said during a brief speech at the Nov.5 event, according to a loose translation offered by a seat mate in the grandstands. But it’s not so much the words for Berdymukhamedov, whose delivery seems low-key and hardly strident for someone who is such a commanding force in Turkmenistan. He is someone who loves to demonstrate his affection for sport. And he was clearly the star of the show, the way the audience seemed to greet his every move with adulation.

Berdymukhamedov peddled about the temporary arena on a bike, leading a group of cyclists. He mounted a horse to demonstrate his dressage skills. Above the arena, a series of four large portraits, depicted Berdymukhamedov on a horse, a bike, with a tennis racket and jogging.

UCI President, Foreign Guests

While the audience of 4,000 was mostly Turkmen, a few dozen foreigners made trek, some invited to the junket by the National Olympic Committee of Turkmenistan at last month’s Acapulco congress for the Association of National Olympic Committees.

Among the NOCs represented were Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Antigua, Peru, Thailand and Turkey.

International Cycling Union President Pat McQuaid came as leader of the federation, not in any designated role to represent the IOC, of which he is a member. No other IOC members were present.

"We have been aware of the great changes taking place in Turkmenistan," he said in his remarks at the ceremony.

"The things we have seen have really impressed us.I look forward oneday to returning to Ashgabat to attend on Olympic Games in these facilities," said McQuaid who also made a valiant attempt to pronounce the tongue-tangling name of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Speaking to Around the Rings afterwards, McQuaid said the country has substantial resources to spend.

"When you consider what’s being developed here, with a budget of some $5 billion, an Olympic park, which will have an international venue for every Olympic sport.

"You just have to ask and it will be provided for you," says about the government’s willingness to please.

"There’s no country in the world that has anything like that," says McQuaid.

He says the stumbling block for now facing Turkmenistan is the lack sport experience.

"The base in all of those sports is low. Along with the development of the infrastructure, they will have to pay a lot of attention to the development of athletes and coaches," says McQuaid.

Starting with Atlanta in 1996, Turkmenistan sent seven athletes to the Olympics; in 2008 10 made it to Beijing in six sports.

The Project

The project is the brainchild of Polimeks, an Istanbul construction firm that has extensive experience in Turkmenistan.

"The aim of the country at the end is to organize big events, like the Olympic Games," CEO Erol Tabanca said at a press conference in Ashgabat.

He says Polimeks proposed the 157 hectare sports park concept as a means to that end about two years ago. Renowned British urban design company Arup was hired to create the plan. Arup’s best-known project of late might be the Bird’s Nest Stadium for the Beijing Olympics.

Designed in three phases, the first part of the Olympic Park is set to finish in 2014. Seven sports venues, including a velodrome and two indoor arenas, one seating 15,000, are in the first phase. The new venues will rise adjacent to an existing 32,000 seat arena which already carries the name "Olympic Stadium".

Although it is not part of the phase one projects, an ice hockey arena is already under construction on the Olympic Park site.

The second phase of the project set to finish in 2016 includes a natatorium and Paralympic center.

2017 would bring a new 60,000 seat Olympic Stadium and a monorail to connect the venues.

Tabanca says excavation and other preparation work is already underway for the first phase of construction. He says work will begin in earnest in about four months.

Polimeks seems to be building all that is new in Ashgabat. Monuments, parks, a TV tower, the new airport, Polimex has operated in Ashgabat since 1998. Tabanja says that the peak of construction, 13,000 workers will be on the site, the biggest project yet for the 15 year-old firm. For Polimeks, he says the work in Turkmenistan could reach $5 billion in value.

The Turkish Connection

"Turkey and Turkmenistan are like brothers," says Turkish Olympic Committee President Togay Bayatli said at the press conference, pledging whatever assistance his NOC could provide – even with Istanbul pondering another bid for the Olympics.

"Every country has a right to host the Olympics," he said, although he does not think the prospects for Turkmenistan are immediate.

"It will take a lot of time for Turkmenistan to go for the Olympic Games. First they have to organize the other games, the Asian Games, Youth Games. Before the Olympics there are other possibilities," said Bayatli.

Written and reported in Ashgabat by Ed Hula.