Asian Games,

regional games sponsored by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for
men and women athletes from Asian countries affiliated with the IAAF. The International
Olympic Committee also grants its patronage.

The first games were held in 1951 at New Delhi; from 1954 they were held every four years.
Athletes from 11 nations participated in the inaugural games, which featured six sports
(association football, athletics, basketball, cycling, swimming, and weight lifting). Forty-one
nations were represented in the 2002 Asian Games in Pusan, South Korea, where events in 38
sports were contested.

The Asian Games, like most international sports festivals, were subject to many boycotts and
exclusions based on political differences. In 1963 the Asian communist countries formed
GANEFO (Games for the New Emerging Forces), which held games without IAAF approval in
1966. In general, GANEFO performances were better than those of the Asian Games, but only
two festivals were held. In the 1970s the communist countries rejoined the Asian Games.

“The Conjurer,” an oil painting by Hieronymus Bosch illustrating the shell game; in the

shell game
 …

also called  Cups And Balls Trick,  oldest and most popular of the tricks traditionally performed
by a conjurer. To begin the trick, the performer places a bead or ball (often a pea) under one of
three inverted cups (or half-shells). As the cups are rearranged on a flat surface, the ball is made
to “jump” invisibly from one cup to another, or to “multiply.” The basis for the illusion is a
secret additional ball that, by skilled manipulation, is put under one cup while the known ball is
removed as secretly from another cup. The manipulative work is aided by the distracting
conversation, or patter, of the conjurer.

In ancient Greece and later in different countries, pebbles, or other small objects, were used for
the trick instead of balls. The shape and type of cup used also varied. Descendants of Roman
conjurers used the cylindrical boxwood measures instead of cups, and a popular old Italian term
for magic was giuoco di bussolotti, “the game with the measures.”

A usual adjunct of equipment for cups and balls was a bag with strings that was tied around the
waist of the conjurer, like an apron. It was not only a serviceable way to carry the properties of
the trick but a handy place for the conjurer secretly to hide and retrieve the balls. Throughout
Europe the conjurer's pocket apron was the badge of the profession of conjuring, and
Taschenspieler, “pocket player,” became the common term for magician in German.
Middle Eastern, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian conjurers performed the shell
game exactly as European magicians did, except, because of the difference in clothing, the
pocket apron was never needed by Oriental magicians, who could hide the ball in their often
voluminous sleeves or in the folds of their robe. The trick persists in the United States as a
sleight-of-hand gambling game, a pea being used under a nutshell, hence the name shell game.

 
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