Islamic Solidarity Games postponed again by a year

ISLAMABAD: The 5th Islamic Solidarity Games, set to start in September 2021 in Konya (Turkey), have been postponed for yet another year owing to growing Covid-19 cases around the world.

The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) has now decided to hold the Games from August 09-18, 2022.

The ISSF held a virtual meeting to decide the Games fate.

A letter released to all the member countries’ National Olympic Committees (NOC) says, “It has been decided to postpone the Islamic Solidarity Games ‘Konya 2021’ to the year 2022 as the world health situation will be improved and stabilised. By that time all the countries will be able to take the necessary vaccinations, and the Games will be organised in an adequate and healthy environment that ensures the safety of all participating athletes.

“The slow vaccination in the majority of the countries may affect the participation of the member countries and may not achieve the main goal for which the Islamic Solidarity Games were organised,” the letter adds.

The Games were originally scheduled to be held in Turkey a month ahead of the start of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. When the Olympics were postponed, the Games organisers postponed the event for a year.

“We have been communicated just this week that the Games have again been postponed for a year,” a Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) official, when contacted, said. “The Indian variant has resulted in further postponement. We were making our final preparations and had almost finalised the strength of contingent,” he said.

“One reason could be that the Games scheduled for September this year were falling too close to the Olympics. “Amid Covid-19 crisis, athletes have to go through the quarantine period. A good number of athletes from Islamic countries will be in Tokyo representing their countries in the Olympics. So it would become difficult for the respective NOCs and athletes to prepare for back-to-back international events in such a short span of time,” the official said.