{"id":17477,"date":"2025-08-25T12:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T12:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=17477"},"modified":"2025-08-25T12:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T12:04:11","slug":"olympic-council-of-asia-says-saudi-winter-games-on-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=17477","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Council of Asia says Saudi Winter Games &#8216;on schedule&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) says that preparations for the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia are &#8220;on schedule&#8221; after South Korea and China emerged as potential replacements.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia is supposed to host the next edition of the regional winter competition in a move derided by environmental groups.<\/p>\n<p>The OCA in 2022 unanimously approved the desert kingdom&#8217;s bid to stage the Games at its $500 billion megacity NEOM, part of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s splurge on major sporting events, including the 2034 football World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>The futuristic and under-construction NEOM will feature a year-round winter sports complex in the mountains of Trojena.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Financial Times last week reported that Saudi Arabia was &#8220;struggling to deliver&#8221; the ski resort on time and had discussed staging the event four years later than planned.<\/p>\n<p>The Saudis were mulling approaching South Korea and China to instead play host in 2029, the newspaper said.<\/p>\n<p>South Korea&#8217;s Yonhap news agency reported that the OCA asked Korean Sport &amp; Olympic Committee (KSOC) president Ryu Seung-min if the country would be willing to replace Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday the Kuwait-based OCA said that it was pleased with the strong progress being made, as we closely monitor the on-schedule work from the LOC (local organising committee).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We appreciate the bold ambition of the venue and the opportunities it will create as a new winter sports destination serving the future of sport in Asia,&#8221; the statement added.<\/p>\n<p>South Korea and China have been mooted as potential replacements because they hosted the Winter Olympics in 2018 and 2022 respectively.<\/p>\n<p>China also staged the Asian Winter Games in its northern city of Harbin in February.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about China potentially stepping in for 2029, foreign ministry spokesman Mao Ning said on Friday: &#8220;I haven&#8217;t heard of the situation you mentioned.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We support Saudi Arabia in hosting the next Asian Winter Games.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) says that preparations for the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia are &#8220;on schedule&#8221; after South Korea and China emerged as potential replacements. Saudi Arabia is supposed to host the next edition of the regional winter competition in a move derided by environmental groups. The OCA in 2022 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}