IIHF reaffirms China's place in men's ice hockey tournament at 2022 Winter Olympics

GENEVA, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) said on Tuesday that Chinese men's ice hockey team will compete in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, following a two-day council meeting in Zurich, Switzerland.

"The Council confirmed that it will uphold the decision by the 2018 IIHF Congress to grant the Chinese men's national team a host qualification position in the 2022 Olympic Games," the IIHF said on its official website.

In May 2018, the IIHF decided to grant the Chinese men's and women's national hockey teams direct qualification for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

"To be clear, the IIHF is not going to remove the Chinese team from the Olympic Games, the status of the men's national team as a host nation participant in the Olympic ice hockey tournament was confirmed by Congress and remains unchanged," said IIHF President Luc Tardif in a council meeting a month ago.

In addition, the meeting also discussed the preparation of the Beijing 2022 ice hockey competitions.

"Following feedback from IIHF and external technical officials concerning the operational capability of the arenas, the test event concluded that both venues are prepared to host the men's and women's Olympic tournaments," it said.

The Olympic men's ice hockey tournament is scheduled on February 9-20, 2022, as the Beijing Olympic Winter Games will start on February 4 and run through to February 20.