Organisers advise of completion of all venues for 19th Asian Games Hangzhou

With less than six months to go before competition starts, all venues for the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 and the fourth Asian Para Games have now been completed with test events now set to get underway.

In their latest update on the Hangzhou Games, organisers explained that all 56 venues - 12 new, 26 renovated, nine rebuilt and nine temporary venues - had been finished on schedule.

Organisers said the venues - located in Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua and other cities - have been built with the concept ‘Green, Smart, Economical, Ethical’ to meet the needs of the various sports while integrating traditional Chinese culture with modern design.

The update explained that the organising committee will now accelerate the work of transferring venues’ operation and maintenance contracts before test events are able to begin.

Venues will include the Yellow Dragon Sports Centre, which has undergone redevelopment work ahead of the Games. Located 18 kilometres from the Asian Games Village, it has been repurposed as a 52,000-seat stadium with an athletics track, a 6,000-seat arena and a 2,000-seat aquatics centre.

The stadium will be one of the football venues for the Asian Games, with the arena hosting gymnastics and the swimming/diving centre staging water polo.

The Alibaba Sports division of Chinese technology giant Alibaba in October sealed a 15-year contract to operate and manage Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre, another of the Games venues.

Comprising the 80,000-seat ‘Big Lotus’ main stadium and 10,000-seat ‘Small Lotus’ tennis centre as its main attractions, the complex first opened its doors in December 2018.

The 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 run from 10th to 25th September followed by the fourth Asian Para Games from 9th to 15th October.

Image: The interior of Asian Games venue the China Hangzhou Esports Centre in China's Zhejiang Province. Credit: China News Service/Wang Gang.