Hanoi selected to host Asian Games 2019

Hanoi has been chosen as the host city for the 2019 Asian Games, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) said on Thursday.

The Vietnamese capital, which hosted the 2003 Southeast Asian Games and the 2009 Asian Indoor Games, beat Indonesia's Surabaya for the right to stage the 18th edition of the event.

OCA President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah announced the result at the governing body's general assembly in Macau. "Everyone remembers the Asian Indoor Games in Hanoi in 2009 and all the participants were very satisfied and wanted to go back to Vietnam," Sheikh Ahmad said in a statement. The OCA said that Dubai had pulled out of the bidding at the last minute.

"The National Olympic Committee of UAE did not bid for staging the Asian Games but was considering previously the idea of organising the games so the news (of the bidding then the withdrawal) is untrue," Youssef Al Serkal, the first deputy for the president of the UAE Olympic Committee said in a statement.