China will next week host its first major international sports event since abandoning strict Covid rules, heralding the return of elite competition to the country after more than three years.
With the exception of last year’s Beijing Winter Olympics, which took place in a “bubble”, almost all global sport ground to a halt in China after the pandemic emerged there in late 2019.
But China abruptly lifted its “zero-Covid” policy in December and world sport organisations will be eager to relaunch lucrative tournaments in the world’s second-largest economy.
The Sudirman Cup team event, one of the biggest tournaments in the badminton calendar, begins on Sunday in Suzhou, near Shanghai. -—AFP
