THE world indoor athletics championships due to be held in China in March have been postponed for a YEAR as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
The decision comes as a leading Japanese official admitted the virus could threaten the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The Olympic Sports Park Gymnasium in Nanjing, ChinaCredit: Getty Images – Getty
Sports chiefs across the globe began instituting emergency measures to deal with the growing crisis.
The first F1 Grand Prix of the new season is also in doubt.
But the decision to cancel the world championships, due to be held in Nanjing from March 13, is a sign of worldwide worries.
World athletics chiefs said they had made the decision “with regret” but that it was “necessary to provide athletes, member federations and partners with a clear way forward”.
Medical experts, in consultation with the World Health Organisation, advised the spread of the virus was still “at a concerning level” with the postponement a safety-first call.
World Athletics added that other countries had offered to stand in for Nanjing but that fears of the virus spreading outside China had been enough to put the event back 12 months to 2021.
The decision came as Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike made the first public admission that the Olympics could be at risk.
People line up outside a drugstore to buy medical masks in NanjingCredit: EPA
Worries citizens buy face masks at a drug store in NanjingCredit: AP:Associated Press
Koike said: “With only 177 days to go and our preparations accelerating, we must firmly tackle the new coronavirus to contain it, or we are going to regret it.
“I will do the utmost to contain this new problem.”
The Olympics has been held as scheduled since the London Games in 1948, after World War Two forced the cancellation of the planned events in 1940 and 1944.
Tokyo, which then had to wait until 1964 to host an Olympics, was due to be the venue for 1940.
Koike’s comment came as major carriers including British Airways suspended flights to mainland China as a result of the outbreak of the virus, which has now claimed 169 lives.
China’s second city Shanghai, around 500 miles from Wutan, the source of the outbreak, is due to host the opening Grand Prix of the 2020 season on April 19.
F1 FEARS
But F1 chiefs have now revealed they are “monitoring the situation in China closely” following UK Government advice not to travel to the country.
The British Paralympic Association is understood to have postponed a planned reconnaissance trip to the Chinese capital, which is due to host the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paras.
And after the four-nation Supreme Ice Hockey League ordered Chinese clubs to play their home games in Russia, Asian football bosses have followed suit.
Chinese teams have been told they must reverse fixtures so that none of them play at home in any of the first three rounds of the Asian Champions League, due to start next month.
The planned skiing world cup men’s downhill, scheduled for the 2022 Olympic venue of Yanqing on February 15, has also been cancelled, with other planned races set for the chop as well.
Scheduled Olympic qualifying tournaments in football, basketball and boxing have already been moved to new venues.
The women’s football tournament is now being held in Sydney but Australian authorities have placed the Chinese team in quarantine in their hotel in Brisbane until next Wednesday, forcing the postponement of their opening game due to be played 48 hours earlier.
Team GB bosses are unconcerned about any issues affecting Tokyo at this stage with all the planned pre-Games holding camps in Japan.
But the scale of fears is growing and the possibility that the virus could genuinely threaten the biggest global sporting event of 2020 is a serious one.
China Coronavirus death toll soars past 130 as number of infected nears 6,000
Source: Athletics - thesun.co.uk
