Asian Games on hold as Covid risk deemed too high
Hangzhou event postponed indefinitely amid countdown to the Communist Party congress
Two major sporting events on the mainland have been postponed indefinitely and another cancelled, with observers pointing to concerns about Covid-19 in the run-up to the Communist Party’s national congress.
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) yesterday said the 2022 Asian Games – set to kick off in Hangzhou in September – would be postponed.
“The Olympic Council of Asia has announced that the 19th Asian Games, originally expected to be held in Hangzhou near Shanghai, from September 10 to 25, 2022, will be postponed,” the council said. It said new dates for the multisport event, second in size only to the Summer Olympics, “will be announced at a later date”.
Early last month, Hangzhou organisers said all 56 competition venues for the games had been completed and test events were continuing as the city prepared to host more than 11,000 athletes from 44 nations and territories.
The OCA said the decision “was taken by all the stakeholders after carefully considering the pandemic situation and the size of the games”. It also said the Asian Youth Games to be held in Shantou in December would be cancelled, having already been delayed once.
Hangzhou-based political analyst Wen Kejian said that with just months to go until the party congress in autumn, the main reason for the delay to the Asian Games was Covid-19 prevention and control. “The outbreak and situation in Shanghai is a lesson learned and put officials [in Hangzhou] under a lot of pressure not to let the situation get out of hand,” Wen said.
In late March, Shanghai entered a snap lockdown with its 25 million residents ordered to stay home. Restrictions remain in force across large parts of the city.
It comes as Beijing prepares to host the five-yearly gathering of top party leaders, at which President Xi Jinping is expected to start an unprecedented third term as party leader. As part of those preparations, authorities have been ordered to remove any potential social and political risks.
The International University Sports Federation (FISU) also announced yesterday that the World University Games, due to start in Chengdu in late June, would be postponed for a second time until next year. The news confirmed yesterday’s Post report that the event had been put on hold, with sources saying that promotional work had stopped and volunteers told to stand down.
Acting FISU president Leonz Eder said the decision to reschedule the event was “the right decision for university athletes”.
“Their welfare is always our number one priority. Continued uncertainty over conditions has made rescheduling the sensible choice,” Eder said. “The decision will enable the greatest possible number of university athletes to attend next year.”
China has been struggling with a new wave of Covid-19 driven by the Omicron variant.
Shanghai is a lesson learned and put … Hangzhou under a lot of pressure not to let the situation get out of hand
POLITICAL ANALYST WEN KEJIAN
Wen said that to prevent transmission of the virus, Hangzhou was expected to adopt the “closed-loop” model of containment used at the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February.
Organisers would create a virus-free bubble separating participants from the community but the Asian Games has more events and venues in other cities, making the plan tougher to apply.
“Hangzhou authorities have already spent hundreds of billions of yuan on construction, and they also hope to hold it,” he said.
But if there was no change to the nation’s zero-Covid policy, it might be difficult to host even next year, Wen said.
“If it is postponed again, it will clash with the next one,” he said.
Mark Dreyer, a Beijing-based sports commentator and author of the book, Sporting Superpower, also said the timing of the Asian Games so close to the congress was a factor. “Obviously, if there’s negative news about Covidrelated event just ahead of what’s supposed to be a positive event, the timing is bad,” he said.
The debate over how best to battle the pandemic has been raging around the world for some time. A key question is whether to adopt a “living with the virus” policy or take the “zero-Covid” stance favoured by China. The mainland’s Labour Day holiday highlighted the different approaches. Lockdowns and restrictions led to travel and tourism spending during the five-day break falling significantly compared with last year. While, in other parts of the world, lives are returning to some semblance of normality through foreign travel, large gatherings and by the lifting of most measures. These images by VCG, Imaginechina, AFP, Reuters, EPA-EFE, AP, Xinhua and Bloomberg look at the contrast between the limited holiday movement in China (above) and the situation elsewhere (below).