The just completed Asian Games offered an eclectic mix of the mainstream and the exotic, the elite and the ordinary.

Liu Xiang, Shanghai's rock star-athlete, delighted the home fans at a packed Aoti Main Stadium - and eased some of the pain of his breakdown in Beijing two years ago when burdened with being the face of the Olympics - winning the 110m hurdles, while the ever formidable Chinese table tennis team made a clean sweep of all gold medals on offer in both the men's and women's team and individual events.

In many respects, these Games followed a similar pattern to the Commonwealth Games, China playing the bullyboy role of Australia, beating up the likes of Myanmar and Laos to hog the lion's share of the medals.

But the spectators in Guangzhou - China's third largest city, located on the Pearl River about 120km north-west of Hong Kong, with a population of 10 million plus - also thrilled to the lesser-known sports of sepaktakraw (a combination of football and volleyball), kabaddi (think wrestling and rugby) and dragon boat racing.

A newspaper colleague once opined that to qualify as a sport, a change of clothes was required. On that score, and others no doubt, chess, in many people's eyes, should only appear alongside the crossword and the This Day in History column, not in any newspaper sports section.

However, for consistently high drama (and farce), the Guangzhou Chess Institute was the place to be during the 16th Asian Games.

China's men won the team gold after winning the final against the Philippines, whose star player Antonio Rogelio Jr took it upon himself to fly back to Manila, unannounced, on the morning of the big match, leaving a sick note at the athletes village citing a headache.

"If he were here, we'd hit him," said teammate John Paul Gomez after he lost his match in the final to Wang Hao.

In the preliminary rounds, Kazakhstan's Murtas Kazhgaliyev, resplendent in bright yellow trousers, would regularly leave the table to wander around the auditorium and watch other matches, frequently sticking his face directly over his rivals' boards to assess their moves.

In his win over Ni Hua of China, the Kazakh left his seat no fewer than nine times to survey the action elsewhere. At other times, competitors could be seen leaving their hall altogether for a quick ciggie out the front of the venue.

The Asian Games are held every four years under the auspices of the Olympic Council of Asia, the regional offshoot of the International Olympic Committee.

So highly do they prize their Games in Asia, they have decided to have three of them each four-year cycle (an Asiad).

In December, the action shifts to Muscat, in Oman, where the competitors will tussle for gold in beach soccer, tent pegging, bodybuilding, jetski sports and marathon swimming, among others.

In February, the OCA family then decamps to Kazakhstan for the Asian Winter Games. Like Roy and HG say, in Asia, so it seems, too much sport is barely enough.