Asian Swimming Championships Postponed Again to 2023
The Asian Swimming Championships have been postponed again, this time until 2023, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The event, scheduled for later this month in New Clark City, Philippines, has been postponed again. The Asia Swimming Federation (AASF) confirmed the decision to Inside The Games.
The 11th edition of the meet was originally to be held in Nov. 2020. Like that summer’s Olympic Games, it was moved back a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Philippines remains unable to stage the meet, meaning it will move back to 2023.
The Asian Swimming Championships were scheduled to take place at the New Clark City Aquatics Center in the Municipality of Capas in the Province of Tarlac. The facility has hosted swimming, diving and water polo competition at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games
The 10th version was held in Nov. 2016 in Tokyo, Japan. Created in 1980, it has more or less adhered to Olympic years over its history, with the exception of the seventh (in 2006) and eighth (2009) editions.
Travel restrictions to the Philippines would be an issue for the staging of the Asian Swimming Championships. The nation saw a surge in cases in September, spiking to a seven-day average of more than 20,000 new cases per day. That has since fallen to an average of 2,000 COVID-19 cases per day. The country, which has endured 2.8 million cases and more than 40,000 deaths, has a vaccination rate of 22 percent.