Formula 1 has to retouch its calendar again, European rugby is paralyzed, American sports altered … pandemic rebound It disrupts world sport again months before the Olympic Games, the Eurocup and the America’s Cup. One year after the historic postponement of these three major sports competitions, the pandemic once again conditions the sports calendar, which was already interrupted for two months as of mid-March before resuming very gradually and mostly without public in the venues.
The Formula 1 season It will not start in Australia on March 21 as planned, but a week later in Bahrain, so it will also end a week later in Abu Dhabi, on December 12 instead of December 5. The F1 promoter announced on Tuesday the postponements of the races in Australia and China (scheduled for April 11 in Shanghai) as a result of the restrictions imposed by these two countries on travel. At the moment no race has been canceled and the season continues with 23 Grands Prix, although last year only 17 of the 22 initially planned could be disputed.
The European rugby club competitions have been postponed “at least until the beginning of February due to the health context”, announced on Monday the organizers, who made this decision after the French government urged their clubs to “postpone their participation” in these tournaments because of the rapid spread in the UK of a much more contagious variant of covid-19. The traditional Six Nations Tournament, which is scheduled to start on February 6, hangs by a thread, after the 2020 edition was already altered by the pandemic. This Tuesday, the La Rochelle team, a Top14 club (the French league) that participates in continental competitions, announced 15 new positive cases and the maintenance of the closure of its training center.
The Wengen descent, one of the most renowned in the ski season and which was scheduled for next weekend, has been canceled as a result of the evolution of the pandemic in the Swiss station. This race and a slalom moved to another mythical place on the winter sports calendar, Kitzbühel (Austria). Women’s events that were scheduled in Yanqing (China), on the stage that will host the 2022 Winter Games, had already been canceled and transferred to Italy for February.
The NBA It is also experiencing the closure of training centers and match rescheduling since the season began in December, without repeating the ‘bubble’ system at Disney World in Florida that allowed the US basketball league to end last season.
Another North American professional championship, the NHL (ice hockey) has opted for a reduced schedule and a geographical reorganization of the divisions, but that has not prevented having to postpone games in the country most affected by the pandemic (374,000 deaths).
Strict conditions
Postponement of the tournament for three weeks, special charter flights for tennis players, mandatory quarantine in Melbourne for 14 days … The organization of the Australian Open has taken unprecedented steps with the aim of holding the first Grand Slam of the season (February 8-21). Conditions too strict for some, such as the American John Isner, who has resigned from the tournament because “he did not want to be away from family so long.”
He Handball world cup, for its part, will be played from this Wednesday in Egypt with the teams locked in a health bubble. The 32 participating teams will only be able to leave their hotels to go to training and for matches in order to reduce the risk of infection.
The strong rebound in the epidemic in the United Kingdom also affects football, with the suspension of many Premier League and FA Cup matches. At European level, the resumption of the Champions League and the Europa League remain for mid-February. Despite the deterioration of the health situation, UEFA has not planned for now to modify the calendar of its club competitions or that of the Eurocup, scheduled from June 11 to July 11.
For their part, the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics They denied this Tuesday that they are going to hold meetings in February on a hypothetical cancellation of the event, scheduled for July 23 to August 8, after they had to be postponed last year due to the pandemic.
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