SANYA, May 13. /TASS/. Sanya began a 200 days coundown till the opening of the Sixth Asian Beach Games scheduled for November 28 - December 6. The ceremony took place on May 12 in the resort city of Sanya, according to the www.hinews.cn.
The celebrations were accompanied by the launch of a new website dedicated to the upcoming games, the signing of contracts and the announcement of the first torchbearer who will take part in the race to honor the games. The signed contracts, in particular, related to obtaining rights to sell goods with official symbols of games, including stuffed "Yaya" toys (a mascot of the game —TASS), fridge magnets, sports bags, badges, laptops and many others.
The doctors and medical staff who took part in helping central Hubei to combat the novel coronavirus also attended the ceremony. Some of them will become torchbearers and take part in the relay of the fire of the beach games.
The event's organizers assure that all goes according to plan despite the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, the construction of a sports camp for the athletes is underway 24/7. The first building is scheduled to be completed on May 16, and the rest of the facilities — by September 30.
The city of Sanya won the right to host the Asian Beach Games in March. Competitions will be held from November 28 to December 6, 2020 and will include 16 disciplines, including swimming, water polo, beach athletics, basketball, volleyball, handball, football, wrestling, rowing, sailing, surfing and others.
The first Asian Beach Games were held in 2008 in Bali, since then they have been held every two years. Sanya is not the first Chinese city to host the competitions. In 2012, the games were held in Haiyang city in Shandong province in eastern China. Over the years the games were also held in Indonesia (2008), Oman (2010), Thailand (2014) and Vietnam (2016).