The Chinese Skating Association (CSA) and its Figure Skating Department confirmed on Wednesday that the country will not host any International Skating Union (ISU) Grand Prix events in the coming 2018-19 season, Xinhua reported.

The ISU released its schedule for the 2018-19 season on Tuesday on its website. The status of multiple events including Figure Skating and Speed Skating that were supposed to happen in China became "TBA (to be announced)". One day later, the CSA and its Figure Skating Department told Xinhua that China will not host the five ISU events, including the games of Grand Prix of Figure Skating and ISU World Cup Speed Skating, in the new season.

The CSA gave two reasons for the cancelling of these ISU events. One is that China's skating team needed to start training and preparation for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. "We have made overall plans for the team and had to be selective with which games our athletes could attend. We need to go overseas to better adapt to international competition and training standards," the CSA told Xinhua.

The other reason given by the governing body was that China needs to improve and refurnish many of its venues for the 2022 Winter Olympics, some of which had been prepared for the ISU events but would not be available when needed. No solution was found after rounds of coordinating efforts, so China has to cancel the events in the end.

Chinese figure skating athlete Jin Boyang will endure a big loss after the cancellation. According to ISU rules, athletes need to enter the top 12 at the previous ISU World Figure Skating Championships before they can compete in two of the six individual events of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating. The points they get at the two individual events will decide whether they enter the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final or not.

Jin did not make it into the best 12 in the World Figure Skating Championships in March and could only select one individual event. As the event in China was cancelled, he lost the opportunity to compete in the second individual event as host athlete. As a result, Jin will probably miss this season's final.