Coronavirus outbreak, the global sporting calendar has been thrown into disarray.
The world is made up of millions of people with different languages, cultures, tastes and views. In this diversity there are but a handful of things that connect us beyond our many borders, one of which is sports.
But since the coronavirus outbreak, the global sporting calendar has been thrown into disarray. All over the world, major sporting events are being postponed with some tethering on the edge of cancellation and others being played in front of small or no crowds.
The virus has had an impact on all types of sports – in European football, several games in the Serie A league have been postponed. Indian Wells, one of the most prestigious tennis events has been cancelled two days before the main draw matches.
The Chinese gymnastics team pulled out of the World Cup in Melbourne due to a ban on foreign nationals travelling from China. Although the delegation showed no symptoms of the virus, these are the kind of measures countries are willing to take on to protect themselves and curb the spread any further.
Being an Olympic year, all sport lovers are on the edge of their seats wondering where the future of one of the biggest sporting platforms lies. The President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach offered some insight into the confusion around the games, stating that plans were continuing for the games to go on as scheduled.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics is scheduled to kick off on July 22nd – coaches, athletes, sponsors and fans all over the world wonder what to expect. Later on, this month, Chief Medical Officers for all national Olympic committees plan to meet to discuss the risks of the athletic competition.
The world of sports has been affected by various scandals like drug bans and boycotts, but nothing has posed more of a looming threat than like the coronavirus. Revenue from ticket sales are dropping and the industry’s economic impact is being threatened.
The fast-changing dynamics of the virus makes it impossible to predict what could happen in the next few weeks or months. This poses a serious threat to the nature of the Tokyo Olympics and other global sporting events.
So, could 2020 be the year sports takes a back seat in our lives? With over 80,000 reported cases and 3,000 deaths declared, it is clear why international sporting bodies are making the difficult decisions and assessing all the necessary outcomes.
The virus is too costly a risk to completely disregard in the name of unity in sports.
