2022 Asian Games to include cricket, but not baseball or softball

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The 2022 Asian Games will take place between September 10 and 25 in Hangzhou, capital city of China's eastern Zhejiang Province, the organizing committee announced on Monday.

The committee confirmed that 37 sports, of which nine are non-Olympic sports, will be included in the games, three more than the 34 selected at the 36th Asian Olympic Council Congress held in September 2017.

Cricket will make a return to the Asian Games in 2022. /VCG Photo

Equestrian is the newly added Olympic competition while non-Olympic dragon boat racing will be incorporated into canoeing, which is an Olympic sport, as a sub-competition. Moreover, kurash, jujitsu and cricket will join the games as the new non-Olympic sports.

Neither baseball nor softball was chosen though both will be included in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Baseball and softball were part of the Olympics between 1992 and 2008 but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2005 voted them out, starting from 2012 in London.

Baseball will miss out. /VCG Photo

Two separate organizations, the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and International Softball Federation (ISF), were running baseball and softball as two separate sports. In order to have the two competitions back in the Olympics, the IBAF and the ISF merged with each other in 2013, giving birth to the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC).

ESports also misses Hangzhou, even though it was introduced into the 2018 Asian Games as a demonstration sport.

Chinese eSports athletes compete in the final of League of Legends at the 2018 Asian Games. /VCG Photo

The IOC's attitude to eSports is one of the major hurdles. Thomas Bach, president of the organization, does not think it's a good idea to introduce something filled with excessive violence into the Olympics.

The Hangzhou Organizing Committee will discuss with the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the Chinese Olympic Committee about the final lineup in 2022. The discussion will also consider four new sports (breakdancing, climbing competition, surfing, skateboarding) suggested by the Paris 2024 Olympics Organizing Committee in February as well as the ones proposed by the OCA in the previous meeting.

(CGTN's Wu Lei contributed to this story)