GREAT BRITAIN are set to pull out of the World Athletics Indoor Championships in China due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The event is scheduled to take place in Nanjing in March, but the Foreign Office warned on Tuesday against all but essential travel to China.
World Athletics and the World Health Organisation will make a decision over the next two weeks on whether the Championships should take place
The coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan and has killed over 130 people so farCredit: Reuters
The entire event is now up in the air in the wake of the outbreak, which has now affected more than 5,400 people across 16 countries.
It has also killed more than 130 people so far, with 26 people succumbing to the virus in China in the last 24 hours alone.
Hundreds of foreign nationals have been evacuated from the city of Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak, which is around 300 miles west of Nanjing.
Sportsmail understands that in the light of the latest advice given from the Government, it is unlikely that Britain will take part in the Championships even if World Athletics go ahead with the running of them.
Over the next two weeks, a decision on whether or not the event will go ahead is due to be made, with the World Health Organisation being involved in that decision making process.
A World Athletics spokesman said: ”World Athletics is monitoring this situation carefully and is in close contact with the World Health Organisation.
”Should any of their advice affect plans for the World Indoor Championships Nanjing 2020, we will notify all our stakeholders promptly”.
Next month’s 9th Asian Indoor Athletics Championships, which was scheduled to take place at Hangzhou in China, is the latest event to be affected by the coronavirus outbreak after it was announced that it would no longer be taking place there.
Hangzhou is 350 miles from Wuhan, which is in lockdown.
Other sporting events to be affected are the Hong Kong marathon, which had more than 74,000 entrants, being cancelled.
The Wuxi Marathon has also been scrapped.
Dina Asher-Smith was not scheduled to take part in the World Athletics Indoor Championships 2020Credit: Getty – Contributor
Team GB were only planning on sending a weakened team to the indoor championships, with leading names such as Dina Asher-Smith, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Laura Muir not scheduled to take part.
Asher-Smith became the first British woman to win a major global sprint title when the 24-year-old stormed to victory in the 200m at the World Championships in Doha in October.
She clocked a British record of 21.88 seconds and also won silver in the 100m.
It made her the first Briton to win a world or Olympic sprint title since Linford Christie at Stuttgart 1993.
Coronavirus: British Airways halts ALL flights to China over killer bug outbreak
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
