2022 Hangzhou Asian Games

Festival throughout Asia, Asian Games

The Asian Games is a continental multi-sports competition held once every four years. Comprehensive sports competitions by continent include the Asian Games held in Asia, the European Games held in Europe, and the Pacific Games held by Oceania countries. Among them, the Asian Games is a sports competition on the Asian continent with 45 participating countries of the *Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). Professor Ok Gwang of the Department of Physical Education at Chungbuk National University said, “Continental sports competitions serve as a platform to share each country’s talent and culture, fostering regional pride and contributing to the development of solidarity between countries within the continent.” He continued, “The Asian Games have a special meaning in terms of unity and mutual understanding as we can discover Asia’s shared values along with the uniqueness of each country.” The significance of the Asian Games can be seen in the special rules unique to the Asian Games. Unlike the Olympics, in the Asian Games, in order to prevent medal hogging, if a country takes first, second, and third place, the third place record is maintained, but the bronze medal is awarded to the athlete from another country with the next highest score. This is in line with the value of the Asian Games, which pursues harmony.

Source: Sungdae Newspaper (http://www.skkuw.com)

The 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games

It was originally scheduled to be held in 2022, but was postponed to 2023 to avoid overlapping the hosting year with the World Cup. Then, the Hanoi Asian Games scheduled for 2019 were canceled and the 18th tournament was brought forward to 2018, a year earlier, and the OCA announced that the competition will be held in 2022 as usual. However, due to the spread of COVID-19 and crowd control in China, the 19th Asian Games will be held in Hangzhou, People's Republic of China from September 23 to October 8.