Kerala National Games to be held in Feb next year

New Delhi: The 35th National Games, slated to be held in Kerala in December, have been rescheduled and will now take place in February next year.

"The National Games in Kerala will be rescheduled and will be held next year," IOA joint secretary Rakesh Gupta told PTI on Friday. "The organisers in Kerala have sought clearance from the IOA if they can hold the Games from February 21 to March 7 and we have given the clearance," he added. The 35th National Games were originally to be held in December 2012 but had to be pushed to 2013 after the last edition in Jharkhand was postponed for several times before eventually being staged in February 2012. The Kerala National Games will be held in multiple venues -- Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kollam, Kannur and Kumarapuram. The 11th edition of the South Asian Games have also been allotted to India after Bhutan expressed its inability to host them. But with the IOA serving a ban imposed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since December last year, the fate of the regional Games have been in a limbo. "Since the South Asian Games is an international event and not a domestic event, the IOA can`t take a decision now. We will take a decision on that after the IOC lifts the ban on India," Gupta said. The IOA had wanted New Delhi to host the South Asian Games but last year, the then Sports Minister Ajay Maken had stated that the Capital city cannot host the Games till the later part of 2014 in view of Delhi Assembly elections later this year followed by General Elections in 2014. PTI