United World Wrestling has made several changes to its Olympic qualification tournaments ©Getty Images

Asia's Tokyo 2020 hopefuls are now set to battle it out in Kazakhstan instead of China after United World Wrestling (UWW) announced a series of changes to its Olympic qualification tournaments.

Chinese city Xi'an was originally scheduled to stage the Asian qualifier from March 26 to 28.

Competitors are now due to fight in Almaty in Kazakhstan with the event also moved back two weeks to April 9 to 11.

UWW said the decision was made by its Bureau to "help with costs and coordination" as the Asian Championships is set to be held straight after the Olympic qualifier in the Kazakh city from April 12 to 17.

Similarly, the African and Oceania qualifier and African Championships are scheduled to be staged back-to-back in El Jadida in Morocco.

The qualification event was due to take place from March 12 to 14 but it is now set to be held from April 2 to 4 ahead of the African Championships, scheduled to run from April 6 to 11.

The Oceania Championships have been cancelled with UWW citing "travel concerns surrounding COVID-19".

Due to the large number of participants expected to compete, the European Championships and European Olympic qualifier will remain at separate locations.

Xi'an in China will no longer stage the Asian Olympic qualifier next year ©Getty Images
Xi'an in China will no longer stage the Asian Olympic qualifier next year ©Getty Images

The qualifier is due to take place from March 18 to 21 in Hungarian capital Budapest with the European Championships set to follow from April 19 to 25 in Warsaw in Poland.

The world Olympic tournament will stay in Sofia in Bulgaria but has been moved back one week to May 6 to 9.

Exactly half of the wrestling berths at the Games had been earned before the coronavirus pandemic forced the postponement of Tokyo 2020 until next year.

Six in each division were earned at the World Championships while two places in each category were won at the Pan American qualification tournament.

Citing "limited interest in a January competition", UWW said the Bureau voted to move the Matteo Pellicone Ranking Series tournament from mid-January to March 4 to 7.

It was also confirmed that the Pan Am Championships in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the Poland Ranking Series events would remain unchanged.

A statement from UWW added: "Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic all competition dates and locations will be subject to change based on the conditions in host countries as well as their ability to meet United World Wrestling's strict sanitary guidelines for events."