The stage of the Alpine Skiing World Cup in Chinese Yanqing, which was scheduled to take place on February 15 and 16, was canceled. The International Ski Federation (FIS) made this decision for the same reason because of which, in recent days, other sports have been transferred or canceled from the PRC - an outbreak of coronavirus that claimed the lives of more than a hundred people.
FIS President Gian-Franco Casper said that the organization cannot risk the health of athletes and guests of the World Cup stage, although it had to fulfill an important function - to become the first test competition before the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2022.
“With great regret, all interested parties are forced to make a difficult decision to cancel the World Cup races in Yanqing this season, as well as the first alpine skiing World Cup competitions in China, as well as the first official test competitions before the Beijing Olympics in 2022. Despite the fact that in Yanqing the level of risk is low, the health and well-being of athletes and all participants should be above all. In addition, it is extremely important that athletes can focus on racing, in particular on a completely new and very difficult track, ”said Casper.
The program of the competition was to include men's downhill and men's super giant - the most dangerous disciplines of skiing, in which athletes try to study the track as much as possible before going down it. From January 16 to January 20, competitions in the Chinese national winter games were already held in Yanqing, to which FIS experts praised but did not participate in the most powerful skiers on the planet.
Women's competitions in the framework of the World Cup are scheduled for March 2021, and their status is not discussed. FIS will make efforts to ensure that men's test competitions on the Olympic tracks in Yanqing still take place before the Games themselves.
The Yanqing area, where a bobsled, skeleton and sledding track is also under construction, is located several kilometers from the Chinese capital. Earlier, the ceremony of the start of the countdown to the start of the Olympic Games, which was supposed to take place in the main arena of the competition, the Bird's Nest stadium, was canceled there.
The stage of the World Cup in alpine skiing has added to the already impressive list of sporting events that had to be moved from China to other countries, which is why the country was literally in sports isolation.
At first, the competition organizations sounded the alarm in Wuhan, the city in which the outbreak of the coronavirus occurred and which is currently completely quarantined. The Olympic qualifying boxing tournament in the Asia and Oceania zone, originally scheduled for February 3-14, was moved from it. It will be held in Jordanian Amman in a month.
It was also necessary to cancel the women's qualifying competitions for the Olympic Games, to which the teams of Australia, Thailand and Taiwan were to come to Wuhan. Initially, the matches were moved to the city of Nanjing, but four days later it was announced that the tournament will be hosted by Sydney from February 3 to 9.
The Chinese team has already gone to the competition, but upon arrival it was immediately placed in quarantine at its hotel, which will end after the first game with the Thai football players is planned. This decision of the authorities is associated with the first confirmed case of coronavirus, which was recorded in Queensland. A 44-year-old man arrived in Australia from Wuhan, through which a national team also traveled to the country.
The Olympic qualifying tournament in women's basketball was moved from Foshan to Serbian Belgrade. Hangzhou will not be able to host the Asian Indoor Track and Field Championships; a replacement has not yet been found for it. In addition, the World Athletics Association postponed to 2021 the Indoor Track and Field Athletics World Championship, scheduled for March 13-15.
The matches of the Federation Cup in tennis were initially transferred from Dongguan to Nur Sultan, but later on, the Kazakh authorities abandoned this idea, closing their borders with China and stopping the issuance of visas.
Of the major international sports competitions that are planned in China in the next two months, only the indoor indoor athletics championship remains.
If in the near future the spread of coronavirus does not stop, then the Olympic qualifying wrestling tournament scheduled for late March in Xi'an and the Chinese Grand Prix Formula 1 will be at risk of cancellation. It should take place on April 19 in Shanghai, two weeks after the race in Vietnam, where the focus of the disease was also found. The manual "Formula 1" transfer Grand Prix has not yet been confirmed.
“At the moment, we can only say that we are closely following the situation together with the promoter in China and the FIA,” the Guardian statement quotes.
The rapid spread of coronavirus not only in China, but also in other countries of the world, calls into question the holding of the most significant sporting event of the year - the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. In Japan, several cases have already been confirmed. This circumstance caused concern of the President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation Alfons Hörman.
“This is a serious problem, because no area of life is more dependent on international exchange than sports,” the Spox functionary quotes.