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World Beach Games Cancelled After Indonesia Withdraws as Hosts Following Ban on Israeli Athletes
by Shiryn Ghermezian
The beach at the fishing village of Amed in East Bali, Indonesia. Photo: Marklchaves via Wikimedia Commons
The 2023 Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) World Beach Games expected to begin in the Indonesian island of Bali next month has been cancelled after Indonesia abruptly pulled out as hosts, giving organizers no time to find an alternative host nation, the ANOC announced on Tuesday.
No political reasons were mentioned in the announcement but Bali Governor Wayan Koster said in April that he would not allow Israeli athletes on his island for the 2023 World Beach Games. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and the country has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel.
“It is with great surprise and extreme disappointment that ANOC has learnt that the Indonesian Olympic Committee (KOI) has withdrawn from its commitment to host the ANOC World Beach Games and the ANOC General Assembly in August 2023,” the ANOC said in a released statement about Indonesia’s “late notice” decision. It added: “ANOC is very disappointed by the KOI’s actions which will deny athletes from 100 qualified NOCs from fulfilling their ambitions of competing at the Games.”
The ANOC World Beach Games is a youth-centered competition, first hosted in Qatar in 2019, that focuses on beach, water and action sports. It was set to take place from August 5-15 with roughly 1,500 athletes from 100 countries set to participate.
The ANOC said in its statement that KOI pulled out as hosts because the budget for the World Beach Games was not released by the Indonesian government.
“While there have been challenges in the Games preparations, as at any major multi-sport event, ANOC had been regularly assured by the KOI that solutions would be found and the Games would go ahead as planned,” it added. “ANOC and the KOI met for weekly coordination meetings, as recently as last week, and at no point did the KOI indicate there were any issues that would lead to such an outcome.”
Months earlier, soccer’s world governing body FIFA stripped Indonesia as host of the men’s Under-20 World Cup following protests in the nation’s capital about Israel’s participation in the competition and after Koster refused to allow the Israeli national soccer team to compete on his island. He even sent a letter to Indonesia’s sports ministry, asking that Israel be banned from competing in the tournament. Bali was expected to host the drawing for the World Cup and agreed to be one of the venues for the competition. Argentina instead took over as hosts of the World Cup, where the Israeli team made it to the semi-finals in early June.
The ANOC said on Tuesday that a decision will be made in the next few weeks regarding a new location and dates for its General Assembly. It added that its priority now “is to ensure the athletes are supported and the [National Olympic Committees] NOCs and [International Sports Federations] IFs are compensated as best as possible in light of the Games cancellation.”
Indonesia’s NOC spokesperson Raja Sapta Oktohari said in a statement that the decision to cancel this year’s World Beach Games was made with a “heavy heart,” attributing it to budget constraints and limited time to resolve the issues.
