China Postpones Asian Games 2022 due to COVID-19

The Asian Games 2022 has been postponed as China battles a resurgence of Covid cases, the organizers announced on Friday.

The games were due to take place in Hangzhou in September but were delayed as China is racing to extinguish its largest outbreak of Covid-19 since the early days of the pandemic, according to the Chinese state media.

"The Olympic Council of Asia has announced that the 19th Asian Games, originally scheduled to be held in Hangzhou, China from September 10 to 25, 2022, will be postponed," said a statement on the official Games website.

The new dates for the sporting contest "will be announced at a later date", the statement added.

Last month, organizers revealed that Hangzhou, a city of 12 million in eastern China, had finished constructing some 56 competition venues for the Asian Games and Asian Para Games.

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