The Indonesian capital, the largest city in Southeast Asia, was officially awarded the Games by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) at its General Assembly yesterday.

They will replace Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, which pulled out in June because of the country's economic problems.

"We are looking forward to modernizing the existing venues with modern ways now, and willing to get the support from friends of OCA and former Asian Games host cities, so we have the condifence in preparing for it," Subowo told insidethegames.

Indonesian Olympic Committee President Rita Subowo had led the Jakarta 2018 presentation to the OCA at the General Assembly in Incheon yesterday ©Facebook

It will be the first Indonesia has staged the Games since 1962.

Then, 1,600 athletes from 16 countries competed in 120 events in 13 sports. 

In 2018 there will be nearly 10,000 athletes from 45 countries competing in more than 400 events in 36 sports. 

Subowo knows that the scale of the Games is on a totally different scale to anything they have organised before, although the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium, built for those Games in 1962, is still the city's main arena and is sure to feature prominently once again. 

"Our nation is happy with this achievement, but we have to work hard, starting from yesterday, to fulfill all requirements," she said. 

"We are not going to build many venues because the time is too short, but we will use existing ones, including some big exhibition centres.

"The new airport will be finished in 2017, and everything will be finished in 2018."

The Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium was built for the 1962 Asian Games, the last time Jakarta hosted the event, and will be used again in 2018 ©AFP/Getty Images

The next Asian Games were scheduled for 2019, a year before the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but Jakarta asked to move them to 2018 due to its Presidential election that year.

OCA President Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah claimed Indonesia deserved to hold the continent's flagship event again because they had narrowly been beaten in the original campaign to host the 2019 Asian Games, when the country's second biggest city Surabaya had lost 29-14 to Hanoi at the vote two years ago.

"All the facilities already have been built and exist in Indonesia," said Sheikh Ahmad.

"And they've hosted many world games, like the Islamic Solidarity Games.

"They have hosted many multi-sport games during the last three years.

"They are capable of hosting the Asian Games.

"We are happy to be back because the last two Games were in East Asia [Guangzhou and Incheon] and this time will be the same region as Vietnam, Central East Asia."

But Sheikh Ahmad ruled out reducing the number of sports in 2018 to make things easier for Jakarta. 

There are 36 sports on the programme here, which is six less than Guangzhou four years ago, but still eight more than in the Olympics. 

He claimed Games must give the athletes exposure to Olympic Games sports disciplines while also promoting traditional Asian sports such as cricket, kabaddi, karate, sepaktakraw and wushu.

"We want to keep our Games as a landmark," said Sheikh Ahmad.

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