The Asian Games due to take place in Hangzhou in September have been postponed until 2023, organizers said Friday, as China battles a resurgence of Covid cases.
The postponement came due to China’s prevailing Covid-19 situation, said Randhir Singh, the acting President of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA).
The decision to postpone the Games was taken at an OCA executive board meeting in Tashkent on Friday.
"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 CCTV.
It also confirmed that the Asian Games will be postponed until 2023.
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.
Organizers 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.
(Staff, Reuters and AFP)
