China replicates Beijing Olympic ‘bubble’ for rare sports event

SHANGHAI: China will replicate its Covid-secure Olympic bubble when it hosts its first major international sports event since the Beijing Winter Games – with organisers calling it a “roller-coaster ride”.

Chengdu, which until recently was under lockdown and was also rattled by an earthquake earlier this month, will stage the table tennis world team championships from Friday for 10 days.

Much like the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics in February-March, the tournament will unfold in a “closed loop” to satisfy the strict zero-Covid policies which have seen most other major sports events in China cancelled throughout the pandemic.

The chief executive of the ITTF, the governing body of table tennis, called it “one of the most – if not the most – complex and important table tennis events in ITTF history”.

Nearly 1,300 people will be encased in the championships’ bubble.

“The road to Chengdu was indeed bumpy or a roller-coaster ride,” Steve Dainton said.

The competition was pushed back once because of an upsurge in coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant at the beginning of the year.

Then, with under a month to go, the southwestern city of Chengdu found itself under a tight lockdown that closed schools, disrupted businesses and forced residents to stay home for over two weeks.

“Obviously we were also looking for contingencies if finally we could not make it, but... the popularity and history that our sport has in China gave us always a strong sense of hope,” said Dainton.

ITTF president Petra Sorling said “words cannot express” the excitement at the tournament finally kicking off.