The Olympic Committee of Asia (OCA) announced that the Asian Games 2022 could be postponed to 2023 due to Covid-19 outbreak, but has not announced a specific date. Initially the Asian Games was scheduled to be held from 10 to 15 September in Hangzhou.
“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, which were scheduled to be held in Hangzhou, China, from 10 to 25 September 2022.” OCA said in a statement on their official website.
“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.
“HAGOC has been very well prepared to deliver the Games on time despite global challenges. However, the above decision was taken by all the stakeholders after carefully considering the pandemic situation and the size of the Games.
“The name and the emblem of the 19th Asian Games will remain unchanged, and the OCA believes that the Games will achieve complete success through the joint efforts of all parties.” they added.
China is trying to contain the outbreak of Covid-19 in many provinces. The government is determined to pursue the “Zero Covid” policy, instead of living with the epidemic like many other countries.
Hangzhou is only 175km from the largest city in China, Shanghai, and has just undergone a week of blockade.
Last month, OCA announced that Hangzhou had completed the construction of 56 competition venues to serve the Asian Games and Asian Para Games.
At that time, they emphasised that they planned to hold the Games on schedule by learning from the anti-epidemic experience from the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, when athletes were asked to follow the bubble regime one by one strict way.
Hangzhou is the third Chinese city to host the Asian Games, after Beijing in 1990 and Guangzhou in 2010.
