Asian Games 2022 postponed as China battles COVID-19

BEIJING: The Asian Games due to take place in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in September have been postponed indefinitely because of COVID-19, organisers said on Friday (May 6).

The Games were scheduled to be held from Sep 10 to 25 but have now been delayed as China tries to stamp out a large resurgence in infections in several parts of the country.

Hangzhou lies less than 200km from 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.

The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) said in a statement that the decision to postpone "was taken by all the stakeholders after carefully considering the pandemic situation and the size of the Games".

New dates for the Games, which typically attract more than 10,000 athletes from across the region, will be announced "in the near future", the statement said.

Organisers said last month that Hangzhou, a city of 12 million in eastern China, had finished constructing about 56 competition venues for the Asian Games and Asian Para Games.

At the time, they indicated that they planned to hold the event under a virus control plan that "learns from the successful experience" of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which were held in February in a strict COVID-secure bubble.

Hangzhou was poised to become the third city in China to host the continental competition after Beijing in 1990 and Guangzhou in 2010.

Some events were due to be held in other provincial cities including Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing and Jinhua.

The OCA also said that the Asian Youth Games, scheduled to be held in December in the Chinese city of Shantou, would be cancelled having already been postponed once.

The World University Games, scheduled to