The 2022 Asian Games has been postponed until 2023 due to rising cases of coronavirus in China, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) has announced.
The Games were set to be staged in Hangzhou between 10 and 25 September. Hangzhou is just 175km away from Shanghai, which is currently in lockdown after experiencing a massive spike in cases. The OCA also announced that the Asian Youth Games, which were set to be held in Shantou, China in December have been cancelled altogether. The Youth Games had already been postponed once and will next be held in Uzbekistan in 2025.
In a statement, the OCA said: "Following detailed discussions with the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) and the Hangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee (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.