World Athletics President Sebastian Coe hopes the COVID-19 pandemic can be contained before the end of the summer, so that athletes can safely return to competitions and the rescheduled World Indoor Championships shall not be postponed once again.
“The issue for us is uncertainty. We don’t know when the season might be able to be started again, I sincerely hope that we have contained the virus before the end of the summer, which should allow us to continue with the dates that have been selected for Nanjing in 2021,” Coe said in a phone interview with Xinhua on Friday.
The World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing were due to be held in the Chinese city on March 13-15, but were postponed until next year amid the Coronavirus epidemic.
The World Athletics Council later approved the new dates of the biennial event, which will now take place on March 19-21 in 2021.
“We were very sorry that the championships had to be postponed, although we completely understand why. And that was the right decision,” Coe said. “We look forward to being in Nanjing to celebrate human endeavour and great athletic ability in March of next year.”
The World Athletics Indoor Championships were among the first batch of major sports events affected by COVID-19. Following the worldwide outbreak of the pandemic, more and more events have been added to the list for postponement or cancellation, including the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and local organizing committee on Monday jointly announced the decision to host the Tokyo Olympic Games from July 23 to August 8, 2021. And in consequence, World Athletics has decided to postpone the 2021 World Athletics Championships in Oregon to 2022.
