Surge in Covid cases in China sends Asiad, World University Games to 2023

The rising Covid numbers in China have forced the organisers of this year’s Hangzhou Asian Games to postpone the multi-discipline event to 2023. The decision to postpone the Asian Games, scheduled to take place in September, was taken today in a meeting involving officials of the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC), Hangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee (HAGOC) and Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, lies around 175 kilometres southwest of Shanghai, a city that has been under a month-long lockdown to combat Covid. China has been struggling to contain its worst outbreak since 2019. The seven-week average rose to over 20,000 cases. “Following detailed discussions with the COC and the 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 press statement, adding that the new dates for the event would be “announced in the near future”.