“The Olympic Council of Asia has announced that the 19th Asian Games, originally scheduled to be held in Hangzhou, China from September 10 to 25, 2022, will be postponed,” said a statement.
New Delhi: Amid rising cases of Covid-19, the governing Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) on Friday said the Asian Games, which was slated to be held in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in September this year, has been postponed until 2023. It is important to note that China is battling its worst-ever spike in the number of Covid-19 cases.
“The Olympic Council of Asia has announced that the 19th Asian Games, originally scheduled to be held in Hangzhou, China from September 10 to 25, 2022, will be postponed,” said a statement.
The city of Hangzhou is less than 200 km away from Shanghai, which is currently fighting another major Covid-19 outbreak and has strict restrictions in place, including weeks-long lockdown. The organisers had confirmed that the construction of all venues and facilities for the Games had been completed in April.
The statement added, “Following detailed discussions with the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) and the Hangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee (HAGOC), the OCA Executive Board (EB) today decided to postpone the 19th Asian Games…The new dates of the 19th Asian Games will be agreed between the OCA, the COC and the HAGOC and announced in the near future.
It added, “Additionally, the OCA EB also studied the situation of the 3rd Asian Youth Games, which was scheduled on 20-28 December this year in Shantou, China. After discussion with the COC and the Organising Committee, the OCA EB decided that as the Asian Youth Games had already been postponed once, the Asian Youth Games Shantou 2021 will be cancelled. The next Asian Youth Games will therefore be held in 2025 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.”