It was to be a historic first: never since its creation in 1967, the Alpine Skiing World Cup has stopped in China. Two years before the Beijing Winter Olympics, a life-size test was finally going to be conducted in Yanqing station on February 15 and 16, with men’s super-G and downhill events.
But Beat Feuz and his competitors will not make the trip. The International Ski Federation canceled the event due to the constantly spreading coronavirus from Wuhan. There are more than 1,200 kilometers between Xiaohaituo Mountain and the epicenter of the epidemic, but there is no question of exposing the athletes to the least risk.
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In recent years, China has hosted many world-class sports competitions throughout the year. The same precautionary principle therefore upsets the program of many sporting disciplines, and this is perhaps only the beginning.
World Athletics decided to postpone the indoor world championships scheduled for March 13-15 in Nanjing on Wednesday. They will take place in 2021. “The advice of our medical team, which is in contact with the World Health Organization, is that the spread of the coronavirus both inside and outside of China continues to be worrying and that no rally likely to be postponed should be held, “said the international federation in its press release.
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Footballers in quarantine
The organizers of the X-Games, a great freestyle sports raout that was to make its first foray into Chinese territory from February 21 to 23 in Chongli, have also decided to postpone the event. Several qualifying tournaments for the Tokyo Olympics, which will take place this summer, have also been relocated to other countries (Jordan for boxing, Serbia for basketball).
The list of less global sporting events that are paying the price for the coronavirus epidemic, on the other hand, continues to grow. The China Football Super Cup, which was scheduled to pit the Shanghai Shenhua against the Guangzhou Evergrande on February 15, has been postponed until further notice. Like the start of the new Chinese basketball league (which was to start on February 1). The Asian Track and Field Championships, the Chinese Winter Games and the Hong Kong Marathon, slated to take place in February, will either be held later or simply be canceled.
Also read: China in turmoil against coronavirus
Meanwhile, the China women’s soccer team is being held in quarantine at a hotel in Brisbane, where it will stay until February 5. The selection is in Australia to compete in an Olympic qualification tournament which was originally scheduled to take place in Wuhan, before being relocated in the first instance to Nanjing, then finally outside the country’s borders. None of the 32 Chinese people in quarantine has so far shown any symptoms, but the authorities are on the lookout and are ready to arrange a transfer to a hospital at the slightest sign. It is already clear that the team will not be able to play its first match as planned, on February 2.
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