2029 Asian Winter Games to be held in Almaty - media

Tengrinews.kz – The 2029 Asian Winter Games will be held in Almaty, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) announced on Monday, 2 February, citing Xinhua.

According to the agency, the event was initially planned to take place in Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday, 5 February, the OCA and Kazakhstan plan to formally finalize the agreement by signing a host city contract in Milan, Italy.

Saudi Arabia was awarded the right to host the Games in 2022. However, last month the Saudi Arabian Olympic and Paralympic Committees and the Olympic Council of Asia announced that the event had been postponed indefinitely.

Why it didn’t work out for Saudi Arabia

It was originally planned that the 10th Winter Asian Games would be held in 2029 in Saudi Arabia – a country with an average annual air temperature ranging from +23°C to +30°C.

For the winter competitions in Saudi Arabia, it was planned to build grand indoor facilities in the futuristic city of Neom, where the necessary winter air temperature could be maintained.

It was expected that it would be possible to organize the competitions already in 2029, but the builders of the futuristic city needed more time.

“The Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia have agreed on an updated framework for future hosting of the Asian Winter Games, confirming the postponement of the 2029 edition to a later date to be announced in due course,” said the official joint statement of the Olympic Council of Asia and the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

2011 Asian Winter Games

Let us recall that Kazakhstan has already hosted the 7th Winter Asian Games in 2011 – the competitions were held in Astana, Almaty and Almaty region.

The opening ceremony took place on 30 January in the capital, and the closing ceremony was held on 6 February in Almaty.

The mascot of the 7th Winter Asian Games was a snow leopard cub named Irbi.

Leopard cub named Irbi, original and refined design / Photo from voxpopuli.kz

The opening ceremony took place in Astana and was organized by a Russian company, which spent about two years preparing it. For the first time, Kazakhstanis witnessed such a large-scale and expensive show. A total of 7 billion tenge was allocated from the national budget just for the opening and closing ceremonies. The entire Asian Games cost the state 35 billion tenge.

More than 1,000 athletes from 27 countries took part in the 7th Winter Asian Games.

A total of 69 medal events were contested in 11 sports. First place in the overall medal standings went to Kazakhstan, which won 70 medals (32 gold, 21 silver and 17 bronze). Second place went to Japan with 54 medals. Third place went to South Korea with 38 medals.