Shanghai was originally slated to stage the second event of the season from May 16 to 22 next year.

It would have been the first Archery World Cup leg to be staged in China since 2019.

But World Archery has confirmed that the event will now be held in Gwangju because of "ongoing travel restrictions in China."

With China adopting a strict "zero-COVID" policy, the nation’s borders have largely been shut resulting in disruption to a number of international events that were due to be staged there.

Yesterday, China - the host of next year’s Winter Olympic Games - registered 94 new coronavirus cases, 33 more than the figure recorded 24 hours earlier.

The Archery World Cup is scheduled to start in Antalya in Turkey from April 18 to 24 before heading to Gwangju in May.

Gwangju has also been awarded the World Archery Championships in 2025 after beating Madrid in Spain to the hosting rights.

French capital Paris is due to play host to the third World Cup event from June 20 to 26 before the circuit is due to stop in Medellin in Colombia from July 18 to 24.

The World Cup Final is expected to be held in September, although a venue has yet to be announced.

World Archery said a decision on the host is set to be made "before the spring", with a deadline of January 31 set for interested cities to complete their bids.

Changes have already been made to the series with World Archery confirming the removal of byes for the top eight individual seeds.

The top eight seeds will instead receive bonus points, which will be added automatically to the Archery World Cup rankings, irrespective of an archer’s final result.

A top-64 cut will be made after qualifying in the individual event - unless at least 104 athletes are registered to a category at the final deadline, in which case the cut will be made at 128.

World Archery claims the changes have allowed standardisation of the schedules of each event, making the tournaments easier to follow for fans and the media.

Teams will also be required to provide a second shirt so that archers facing each other in televised individual finals wear different colours.

American Jack Williams and Germany’s Lisa Unruh earned the men’s and women’s recurve titles in the 2021 Archery World Cup.

The Netherlands’ Mike Schloesser and Colombia’s Sara Lopez won the compound events.