The Asian Games 2022 which were supposed to take place in September this year in Hangzhou City, China has been postponed. The decision was taken due to the biggest COVID wave that the nation is facing right now, said organisers on Friday. From September 10 to 25 the games were going to be organised before getting postponed, the decision is very obvious as China does want a super resurgence of virus infection in the whole country.
Shanghai & Zero-COVID Policy
Hangzhou city is less than 200 km away from the country’s most favoured city Shanghai, which has seen months of lockdown because of the Zero-tolerance policy of its communist party against the virus.
A statement from The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) said that the games have been postponed as the decision, “was taken by all the stakeholders after carefully considering the pandemic situation and the size of the Games.” Also as per the information provided by the council the new dates for the games in which typically 10,000 athletes will take part will be announced in near future.
The World University Games that were already scheduled once before, have now been postponed till 2023 the organisers said.
Organisers pointed out that Hangzhou city which is located in eastern China had completed constructing the 56 competition venues for the Asian Games and Asia Para Games.
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Possibility of Asian Games 2022 Postponement Becomes True
At the time of preparation, they were planning to conduct the games in a virus controlled environment. But rising COVID patient numbers became a doubt raiser and the announcement made on Friday helped the worst fear to become truth.
Kuo Hsing-chun, Taiwan’s top weightlifter, and a gold medalist of last year’s Tokyo Olympics told AFP, “With the coronavirus outbreak getting more and more serious, I was more or less mentally prepared for this.”
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) also said that the Asian Youth Games that were supposed to be held in December in Shantou City, China would likely be cancelled after being postponed once.
