Paris (AFP)
The wave of cancellations and postponements of sporting events continued to spread around the world on Thursday at the same time as the coronavirus pandemic: basketball in the NBA and in Europe as well as the tennis circuit were put on the stop and all major competitions are now on hold, including Euro football.
UEFA convened a videoconference for Tuesday with the European federations to decide whether it will be held and whether or not to continue the Champions League. The Euro is supposed to start in three months to the day (June 12-July 12) in an exceptional format which raises all the more questions. It mobilizes twelve countries and the Italy-Turkey opening match is scheduled in Rome, capital of the country most affected in Europe by the Covid-19 with 827 dead out of nearly 12,500 cases identified.
European football, which has already been hit hard, still recorded worrying news on Thursday: the contamination of two Italian Serie A players, Daniele Rugani, of Juventus Turin, and Manolo Gabbiadini of the Sampdoria in Genoa. Juve has been placed in quarantine, including Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been in solitary confinement for several days on his native island of Madeira but has no symptoms of the disease. Inter Milan did the same.
- Rudy Gobert and the NBA affected -
In the United States, the NBA was suspended Wednesday "until further notice" after the announcement of a first case of contamination in the Utah Jazz team, just before the start of its match in Oklahoma City . The player concerned is one of the stars of French basketball, Rudy Gobert. A question mark is placed on the end of the regular season which was to continue until April 15 before the start of the play-offs. Thursday, Fiba and Euroleague followed in the footsteps of the great American league by stopping all European club competitions.
In tennis, it was first of all the local authorities who took the lead by canceling the Miami tournament, one of the most prestigious of the year after the Grand Slams, in both women and men. Shortly after, ATP announced that all competitions were stopped for six weeks.
In Formula 1, the season is still scheduled to start this weekend in Melbourne, Australia, but the McLaren team withdrew after a member of the British team tested positive for Covid-19.
Beyond that, it is all of the sports disciplines that see their calendars turned upside down by the coronavirus.
In football, the case of Rugani may further complicate the organization of the knockout round of the Champions League between Juve and Lyon, normally scheduled next Tuesday and already announced behind closed doors.
Four teams have so far been able to reach the quarter-finals of the C1, Paris SG and Atalanta Bergamo - after return matches played behind closed doors - and Atletico Madrid and Leipzig, them under normal conditions. But uncertainty also hangs over the round of 16 return between Barcelona and Naples scheduled for next Wednesday, Spain having prohibited direct air links with Italy until March 25.
After having prematurely ended the women's season on Wednesday evening, world skiing canceled on Thursday morning the last two men's races (giant and slalom), which were to take place in Kranjska Gora, in Slovenia but close to Italy, this weekend. A cleaver which offers the big crystal globe to the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, at the expense of the French Alexis Pinturault.
- The flame lit anyway -
The World Figure Skating Championships, scheduled for next Wednesday in Montreal, Canada, also did not resist. No more than the basketball Euroleague, men and women, as well as the lower level European competitions, all suspended Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, on the ancient Greek site of Olympia covered with daisies and other spring flowers, under a cloudless sky and the song of birds, the Olympic flame was lit, certainly without spectators, but as if nothing had happened. '' was almost, just over four months from the Olympics-2020, whose opening ceremony is scheduled for July 24 in Tokyo. Only a hundred guests were gathered.
As questions about their attire are increasing, "a cancellation is unthinkable," said the governor of the Japanese capital Yuriko Koike Thursday, the day after the transition to the pandemic stage announced by the World Health Organization.
Rare survivor, the Paris-Nice race, it continues on the roads of France, until Sunday. The only visible precaution is the departure and arrival areas from which spectators are kept away.
© 2020 AFP