CORONAVIRUS: Sports events hit by the pandemic

ITALY

* All sports events have been cancelled until April 3.

ARGENTINA

* Argentina has cancelled international sports events in March.

OLYMPICS

* The Tokyo 2020 Olympics torch lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia will be held without spectators.

NORTH AMERICA

* Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and National Hockey Leagues have temporarily restricted locker-room access to players and essential staff.

* The NBA suspended its season until further notice after a Utah Jazz player tested positive for the virus.

* San Jose Sharks’ next three NHL home games – v Montreal Canadiens (March 19), v Boston Bruins (March 21) and v Arizona Coyotes (March 29) – will be closed to the public.

* Seattle Mariners will not play their MLB home games in March.

ATHLETICS

* The World Athletics Indoor Championships, scheduled for Nanjing from March 13-15, have been postponed until next year.

* European Athletics postponed the European Throwing Cup scheduled for March 21-22 in Leiria, Portugal.

* The Paris and Barcelona marathons have been postponed.

* Kenya’s athletics authority has barred its athletes from travelling to international events.

SOCCER

* FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation have agreed to postpone the Asian World Cup qualifying matches in March and June.

* Champions League: Valencia v Atalanta (March 10) and Paris St Germain v Borussia Dortmund (March 11) took place in empty stadiums. Barcelona v Napoli and Bayern Munich v Chelsea (both March 18) will be played without fans.

* Europa League: Manchester United v LASK and Wolverhampton Wanderers v Olympiakos Piraeus, both on March 12, will be played without fans.

UEFA has postponed two ties after one side, Spain’s Getafe, refused to travel to Italy and another, AS Roma, said they had been denied permission to travel to Spain.

* Premier League: Manchester City’s match against Arsenal on March 11 was postponed because players from the London club have had contact with the owner of Greek side Olympiakos, who has contracted the virus.

* Players in the Premier League will forgo traditional pre-match handshakes.

* La Liga: Matches will be played without fans for at least the next two rounds, the league said on March 10.

* Bundesliga: Borussia Moenchengladbach v Cologne (March 11) was played without fans. RB Leipzig v SC Freiburg and Borussia Dortmund v Schalke 04 (both March 14) will also be played without spectators.

* Ligue 1: RC Strasbourg v PSG was postponed. All Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 games until April 15 will be played without fans.

* Spain’s Copa del Rey final between Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad scheduled for April 18 in Seville was postponed.

* The Slovenian Football Association said  all domestic and international matches will be played without spectators until further notice.

* The Swiss league has been put on hold until at least March 23.

* All Romanian league matches will be played without fans until further notice.

* All Bulgarian league matches in the next two rounds will be played without fans.

* Matches in the top two tiers of Czech football will be played without spectators between March 13-16 and March 20-22.

* New seasons in the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean professional leagues have been postponed.

* Players from Danish clubs Brondby and Lyngby are in isolation after they met former international Thomas Kahlenberg, who has tested positive for the virus.

* Slovakia will host Ireland in their Euro 2020 qualifying playoff semi-final on March 26 without any fans.

* Brazil’s first two qualifying games for the 2022 World Cup — against Bolivia (March 27) and Peru (March 31) — have been postponed, a source at the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) told Reuters on March 11.

* A four-team international event in Doha featuring Croatia, Portugal, Belgium and Switzerland from March 26-30 has been cancelled.

* An international friendly between Germany and Italy (March 31) in Nuremberg will take place without fans.

* Poland’s international friendlies against Finland (March 27) and Ukraine (March 31) will take place without fans.

* Moldova will play home friendlies against Andorra and Russia (March 26 and March 31) without spectators.

* Tickets are not being sold for the Euro 2020 qualifying playoff semi-finals between Bulgaria and Hungary and Bosnia and Northern Ireland.

* Asian Champions League: Matches involving Chinese clubs Guangzhou Evergrande, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai SIPG have been postponed. The start of the knockout rounds was moved back to September.

FORMULA ONE

* The Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai has been postponed.

* The Bahrain Grand Prix will go ahead on March 22 without fans.

* Four crew members of the Haas team and one from McLaren have been isolated and tested for the virus ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 15.

MOTORCYCLING

* Four rounds of the MotoGP season in Qatar, Thailand, Texas and Argentina will not go ahead as scheduled.

* The Spanish World Superbike round has been postponed from March 27-29 to Oct. 23-25 while the French round has been moved back from Sept. 25–27 to Oct. 2-4.

MOTOR RACING

* The World Endurance Championship cancelled the Sebring 1,000 Miles race in Florida on March 20 after the United States imposed restrictions on travel from Europe for 30 days.

TENNIS

* The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells has been cancelled.

* The Fed Cup finals to be held in Budapest, Hungary from April 14-19 and the playoffs to be held in various locations worldwide were postponed.

* The WTA cancelled the Xi’an Open and Kunming Open.

RUGBY

* Three Six Nations matches have been postponed.

* The women’s Six Nations game between Scotland and France scheduled was postponed after a home player tested positive for coronavirus.

* The Singapore and Hong Kong legs of the World Rugby Sevens Series have been postponed from April to October.

ROWING

* Two World Rowing Cups, the European Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta and the final Paralympic Qualification Regatta, all due to be held in Italy between April 10 and May 10, have been cancelled

TABLE TENNIS

* The world championships in Busan, South Korea, have been pushed back provisionally from March to June.

* The April 21-26 World Tour Japan Open in Kitakyushu has been postponed.

WINTER SPORTS

* The women’s world ice hockey championships in Canada have been cancelled.

* Speed skating world championships in Seoul have been postponed until at least October.

* The March 16-22 world figure skating championships in Montreal have been cancelled.

BOXING

* Olympic boxing qualifiers for Asia and Oceania were moved to Jordan from China.

GOLF

* The Honda LPGA Thailand event and the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore have been cancelled.

* The Indian Open, scheduled to take place from March 19-22 in New Delhi, has been postponed.

* The Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur and the China Open have been postponed.

* The 2020 Czech Masters, a European Tour event, has been cancelled and organisers have reserved the week of Aug. 19-22 for the 2021 edition.

CYCLING

* The final two stages of the UAE Tour were cancelled after two Italian participants tested positive for coronavirus.

* Four teams have pulled out of several cycling races in Italy.

AUSTRALIAN RULES

* The AFL game between St Kilda Saints and Port Adelaide Power scheduled for May 31 in China has been moved to Melbourne.

WEIGHTLIFTING

* The Asian Championships, scheduled to take place in Uzbekistan, have been cancelled.

BASEBALL

* The final qualification tournament for the Olympics in Taiwan has been put back from April to June 17-21.

* Japan’s professional league has postponed the start of the new season.

CRICKET

* India ordered upcoming international matches to be played in empty stadiums.

* The ICC postponed the men’s Cricket World Cup Challenge League A that was set to begin on March 16 in Malaysia.

JUDO

* The International Judo Federation cancelled all Olympic qualification events through to the end of April.

BADMINTON

* The India Open, scheduled for March 24-29 in New Delhi, will go ahead as planned but without spectators.

WATER POLO

* Europe’s governing body for aquatic sports (LEN) postponed three water polo competitions — the 11th round of the men’s Champions League, the women’s Euro League quarter-finals and the men’s Under-19 European championship qualifiers.

GYMNASTICS

* The All-Around World Cup in Stuttgart, scheduled on March 20-22, has been cancelled.

* The Apparatus World Cup in Doha, scheduled for March 18-21, has been postponed to June 3-6.

* The Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup (April 3-5) in Pesaro, Italy has been postponed to June 5-7 while the Trampoline Gymnastics World Cup (April 24-25) in Brescia has been postponed to June 19-20.

TAEKWONDO

* A European qualification tournament scheduled for April in Moscow has been postponed.

Related posts

Liverpool’s Jota Set to Return for Clash with Bologna

Bayern Set for Enjoyable Encounter at Villa, Kane’s Participation Uncertain

Russia Takes Control of Vuhledar After Two Years of Ukrainian Defiance