Aerobics and kick basketball are not everyone's idea of serious sports and have yet to find a place in the Olympic Games.

In this year's first indoor Asian Games, however, they will feature proudly on the programme alongside established sports such as athletics and short-course swimming and other less traditional pursuits including futsal, or five-a-side soccer.

"If you want to increase people's growth in sport, you must adapt, include sports that are exciting to them, beneficial to their health," said Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) international relations director Herb Perez.

"These will be exciting Games, very fast, a great spectator event. It's tailor-made for television and you'll see the Games grow extremely fast."

The inaugural Games, launched by the OCA at the weekend, are set for Bangkok from November 12-19.

The indoor Games will be held every two years and comprise around 10 sports which feature in neither the Olympics [Images] nor the Asian Games.

TELEVISION VIEWERS

Asian officials said they had approved the innovation after much deliberation, to reflect the changing sporting activities among Asian youth and the television viewership potential.

The second edition of the Games is already planned for Macau in 2007.

The Bangkok Games will also include inline roller hockey, dance sports, Thai-origin hoop takraw (kick basketball), Muay Thai (kick boxing) and extreme sports, or X-Sports, mainly involving daring manoeuvres on bikes or skates.

"The OCA realised sport is changing and the youth are becoming interested in many different sports that are not traditional," Perez said.

"It's our desire to bring them back into the fold, help them grow and increase support for our programme."

Competitions such as wall climbing and speed climbing, which will feature in Bangkok, are already popular in south-east Asia and receive good television coverage.

KARATE KICKS

Hoop takraw and Muay Thai have also begun to spread throughout the continent.

Hoop takraw is a variant of the more popular sepak takraw, or kick volleyball. It is usually a seven-a-side game where the player holds his arms behind him to form a hoop, back-heeling the ball to pass through it and a hoop above him to score.

Kick boxing, a competitive sport in Thailand since the 13th century, combines boxing punches and karate kicks. Amateurs wear protective headgear and padded vests.

The OCA expects countries to warm to the idea of hosting the Games as they do not require a huge budget.

"It's not an unwieldy Games," Perez said. "It is not in the scope of the Asian Games. It is something any city can hold and it is over a shorter period of time."

Asian Olympics officials expect most of their 45 members to participate, although only countries such as Japan [Images], China and hosts Thailand, are likely to field full teams in every sport in Bangkok.