Asian Games 2022 postponed – Asian Games Hangzhou Postponed: The Asian Games due to take place in Hangzhou in September have been postponed indefinitely. The organisers have confirmed the development on Friday. As China battles a resurgence of Covid-19 cases, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) decided to POSTPONE the Games: Follow Asian Games 2022 LIVE Updates & Sports News LIVE Updates with InsideSport.IN
The development comes as bad news for all athletes from India and across Asia.
No OFFICIAL reason is given in the statement by OCA. China is racing to extinguish its largest outbreak of Covid-19 since the early days of the pandemic.
“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 on the official Games website, first posted on Chinese state media.
No alternative date has been announced so far.
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Asian Games 2022 postponed – New Dates Asian Games: The new dates for the sporting contest “will be announced at a later date”, the statement added.
The host city of Hangzhou lies near the country’s biggest city, Shanghai, which has endured a weeks-long lockdown as part of the ruling Communist Party’s zero-tolerance approach to the virus.
Organisers said last month that Hangzhou, a city of 12 million in eastern China, had finished constructing some 56 competition venues for the Asian Games and Asian Para Games.
At the time, they indicated that they planned to hold the events under a virus control plan that “learns from the successful experience” of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which were held in February in a Covid-secure bubble.
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Asian Games 2022: Bad news for athletes as Asian Games postponed ‘indefinitely’, new schedule to be announced soon
Why the Asian Games have been postponed? Covid-19 Situation in China
- The decision comes at a time when China, where the virus emerged in late 2019, is experiencing its biggest Covid-19 outbreak.
- The country is battling a record number of daily cases in Shanghai.
- The city is under lockdown for more than a month. Shanghai is just a short train ride away from Hangzhou, where mass Covid-19 testing began last week to keep a check on rising omicorn cases.
- In the last few days, China’s capital Beijing, too, began tightening its Covid curbs.
When the new schedule for the Asian Games will be announced?
No alternative date has been announced so far.
The international calendar in 2023 is completely packed. The Olympic qualification events for all sports will be held in YEAR 2023. This is the reason the OCA and the Asian Games organisers did not immediately announce new dates for the Games.
The decision is likely to have a bearing on the Paris Olympics qualification system as well.
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