Sports tournament and training canceled

Due to Mongolia’s first locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 and associated lockdown measures, the sports sector is facing a complete standstill, as well as other sectors. Several official tournaments and trainings were canceled indefinitely.

The Fifth Students’ Sports Festival was launched on November 2 with a basketball tournament and the gold medalists were announced. The handball tournament was continuing on the third day but were canceled due to new COVID-19 lockdowns. The next tournaments were cheerleading, futsal and volleyball.

The national teams of judo and football were training for the upcoming Asian Games and other international tournaments. However, their training is put on hold for an indefinite period.

Some speculate that quarantine regime will continue for at least a year. Top basketball, football and volleyball leagues should consider themselves lucky that they had an opportunity to unfold before the new and stricter lockdowns.

The previous quarantine regime, which took place in the first half of 2020, caused major economic damage to sports federations and they were struggling to recover before the new lockdowns.

However, the biggest issue is not money as athletes are missing out on vital training. Sports experts say that athletes have to be in good shape to represent Mongolia in international tournaments and there are rumors that if needed, sports federations will build a training camp similar to the NBA Bubble.