Vietnam’s Southeast Asian Games given May 2022 start date after Covid-19 spread brought under control

The regional Games, which feature 11 national Olympic committee teams competing in 520 events across 40 sports, will now be held in Hanoi during an as yet unspecified two week period in May 2022.

Vietnam suffered a huge spike in coronavirus cases earlier this year and the government introduced a raft of lockdown measure to minimise the outbreak. Almost 20 per cent of the Vietnamese population is now reported to be vaccinated.

The SEA Games have been held every two years since 1959 under the auspices of the Southeast Asian Games Federation and is supervised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA).

It has only been disrupted once in its history, when its 1963 edition in Cambodia was cancelled due to political turmoil in the country.