(ATR) Olympic qualifying in rowing and triathlon are among the latest events to be cancelled or moved due to the growing coronavirus outbreak.
The executive committee of FISA, the World Rowing Federation, announced on Thursday that the 2020 FISA Asia and Oceania Continental Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta and 2020 Asia and Oceania FISA/Olympic Solidarity Training Camp are cancelled.
The regatta was scheduled for Chungju, South Korea from April 27-30, with the training camp taking place before the regatta.
FISA says Paralympic qualification for Asia and Oceania will now take place as part of the Final Paralympic Qualification Regatta in Gavirate, Italy from May 8-10.
Olympic qualification for the regions will now be part of the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland from May 17-19.
Discussions are ongoing as to whether an alternative training camp or camps can be arranged.
FISA says that the venues for the four major rowing events scheduled for Italy in April and May are in areas "presently considered to be low risk" and that the events will continue as planned, at least for now.
The International Triathlon Union on Wednesday moved the 2020 Chengdu ITU Mixed Relay Olympic Qualification Event out of China and to the city of Valencia, Spain.
The event was scheduled for May 9, followed the next day by a World Cup. Both events were included in the qualification period. The mixed relay event in Valencia will take place on May 1, still within the qualification period. But the World Cup has been postponed to a date yet to be determined later in the season and will no longer be a qualification event.
The ITU also announced that Asian Cup events in Tainan (TPE), Beihai (CHN) and Dexing (CHN) scheduled to be hosted in March and April have also been postponed.
Also on Wednesday, theInternational Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation (IBSF) announced that its 2020 congress has been relocated from Shanghai to Antwerp, Belgium.
The IBSF says the current limitation of travel possibility due to the spread of coronavirus does not give sufficient preparation time for the event.
The schedule will remain as planned with the pre-Congress on June 29 followed by the Congress on June 30.
Tokyo 2020 Downsizing
Tokyo 2020 organizers are beginning to scale back test events due to concerns over the coronavirus.
A Paralympic boccia test event this weekend will be held without any athletes, according to Kyodo.
Officials from the organizing committee and the sport's national federation will stand in for wheelchair-bound athletes as the tournament's operations and systems at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre are checked out.
The test will take place on Saturday and Sunday and will be closed to spectators and the media.
The test event was originally scheduled for Friday but was postponed on Feb. 20. At that time, it was expected that a smaller number of domestic athletes would take part.
Olympic organizers are also looking into downsizing a sports climbing test event slated for March 6-8 at Aomi Urban Sports Park.
Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto told reporters on Wednesday that the Olympic torch relay could also be downsized. But Kyodo reports he rejected any suggestion that it would be cancelled.
The torch relay in Japan begins March 26 and is scheduled to pass through 859 municipalities over 121 days.
Asian Football Calls Emergency Meetings
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) will hold emergency meetings next week as it works to manage the growing impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
Representatives of the AFC, its member associations and its leagues from both the East and West regions will be gathering in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The East Zone meeting will be held on Monday, March 2 followed by the West Zone meeting on March 7-8.
The AFC on Thursday also postponed six more Asian Champions League games scheduled for next week. Five of the six matches include clubs from Iran, where the number of coronavirus cases has spiked in recent days.
Earlier this month, the AFC postponed until April all but one Champions League game involving the four Chinese clubs in the competition.
The AFC says it has also been working with world governing body FIFA to assess the potential impact on the qualifying matches for both the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 scheduled to take place in March.
Coronavirus News on Around the Rings
Written by Gerard Farek
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