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Lets not forget that the Turkmen President famously won the nations richest horse race (what a surprise)...and then....( I can guarantee you that this video is not available in Turkmenistan!)

Equestrian was obviously an egregious inclusion in a “Indoor and Martial Arts Games,” but the program was still composed of mostly of martial arts and indoor sports. Tennis even had an indoor arena for the Games. It might be best to think of the AIMAG as the Asian Mini Games. In fact, the 2013 edition in Incheon served as a test event for the 2014 Asian Games. I don’t have the souvenir program for the opening ceremony, but I do have the link for the media guide: http://media-cdn.ashgabat2017.com/ckeditor_assets/attachments/642/ashg2017_343_cer_opening_ceremony_media_guide_rgb_final_8_1_4_2.

Ashgabat 2017 was a really successful multi sports games. Turkmenistan hired a mostly foreign workforce that had experience working on Olympic organizing committees, and other large international events. They wanted the Games to look and feel like a miniature Olympics/Asian Games. The OCA even invited all of the Oceania NOCs to compete for medals at the Games. I remember watching that ceremony live. The artistic segments were very good, but the “President” of Turkmenistan got something like 20 minutes of applause. I believe the host broadcaster (IGBS) started their broadcast on delay so they could edit down a bunch of the gratuitous applause for the president and other dignitaries. The opening ceremony media guide is still available for download on the Ashgabat 2017 website if you want to understand what you’re watching. As much as the 2017 AIMAG were a success, Turkmenistan should not be awarded with further chances at hosting multi sports games. Their human rights and press freedom record is on par with, or worse than, North Korea. If you’ve seen any footage of sports events from the Games, you’ll see that the government of Turkmenistan essentially forced their citizens to fill all the arenas during the Games. They even trained them up like the North Korean cheerleaders we saw at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Plus, Turkmenistan added a bunch of Belt Wrestling events to program, so they could artificially inflate their medal total to win the medal table and make their country look great in front of their citizens. It’s also worth nothing that special event was to the equestrian (a sport which was neither held indoors nor a martial art) program at the last minute. This event was the Akal Teke Cup, which featured only traditional Turkmeni Akal Teke horses. The President of Turkmenistan owns almost 600 Akal Teke horses, and some claim he even has a fetish for them. Of course many of the horses used in the event were owned by him. So he essentially held a pageant for his favorite children, and then awarded medals for that.

Turkmenistan is a funny place...went a few years ago....sometimes ranked BEHIND Nth Korea in freedom indexes! But unlike Nth Korea (and the other Stans) it is enormously wealthy with gas. And they blow the money on crap like this, streets lined with marble palaces etc...

What’s that? Suicide for fear of death? Never in a million years would athletes en masse go for that idea.

Who cares about fair? This is the IOC we're talking about. I'll believe in boycotts when I see them. You really think the USOPC would boycott an Olympics in China knowing it's almost certain that China would decline to come here in 2028? No shot. And should Tokyo not be able to host next Summer because of the pandemic, do you really think the IOC would punish themselves and tell China they're a no go? Right now is a pretty bad time for Olympism. Let's hope the state of the world, both in terms of the pandemic and other human rights issues, gets better in the next 12 months. I'm hopeful the virus can be reigned in to the point it's safe to have sports again (I plan on doing my part for that on November 3rd), but considering it was no secret that China did not in fact clean up their act after the 2008 Olympics, clearly the IOC does not consider human rights issues a dealbreaker.

Did they edit out the dropping and extinguishing of the torch at 1.19.00? That was the best part!

The French have this proclivity to do strange things with their ceremonies. And they like to do outdoor/"theatre in the streets." 1. weird Albertville 1992 ceremonies 2. Med Games 1993 - held lakeside, or by a beach in Languedoc-Rosillon. (There's a partial clip of that on UTube.) 3. this FIFA 1998 World Cup 4. Jeux de la Francophonie 2013 in Nice when the OC was held at the Place Messina (the public square) in Nice. I hope they don't f*ck up 2024 with their weirdness. Oh, well, Cirque du Soleil just filed for bankruptcy becuz all their shows in Vegas closed -- and of course NO TOURING shows either.