The Asian Games, to be held in Hangzhou city of China in September, have been postponed until 2023. According to the news agency Reuters, the acting President of the Asia Olympic Council (OCA) Randhir Singh gave this information on Friday. The 19th season of the multi-sport game was scheduled to take place from September 10-25 in the capital of Zhejiang province, located about 175 kilometers southwest of Shanghai.
The report said that less than three months after Beijing hosted the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, this year’s Asian Games are being postponed due to the spread of the Omicron variant of the corona in the country. Apart from this, the World University Games can also be postponed. It was scheduled to be held last year, but was postponed to 2022.
This year, between 26 June-7 July, it was to be held in the western city of Chengdu in China. It is believed that about 6,000 athletes were going to participate in it. The Switzerland-based International University Sports Federation (FISU) administers the University Games. He is likely to issue a statement regarding this on Friday.
More than 11,000 athletes were to participate in the Asian Games. This number is higher than the Summer Olympics. Both the Games were expected to be held using a ‘closed-loop’ system similar to the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics. With its help, athletes and the media were isolated from the general population of Beijing. All the people involved in this were tested daily and the temperature was checked continuously.
Until last week, the organizers and the Asia Olympic Council insisted that the Asian Games would go ahead as scheduled in September. Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President Narinder Batra had confirmed the same earlier this week. However, the decision to postpone the Games was taken after the OCA Executive Committee meeting. Due to the busy international calendar in 2023, organizers did not immediately announce new dates for the Games.