Coronavirus and Sport

[Hot Pepsi]

The Spelling Bee is off. Oh the humanity.

[Hot Pepsi]

So far, I’ve seen the head of Britain and Italy’s Olympic contingents call for it to be moved and USA swimming says it must be moved.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Surely the sensible thing is now to call off all sport until 2021, or possibly September 2020. There's no way the Olympics are happening in the current situation.

Imp posted a great piece on the football thread about how this now could create a football calendar, the same could happen for rugby.

[Satchmo Distel]

George Dobell (cricket writer for Cricinfo)

[URL]https://twitter.com/GeorgeDobell1/status/1241658519230779392[/URL]

[Hot Pepsi]

The IOC now says it will decide in a month. Ok, then.

[Janik]

Ach, ignore them. We know the decision they will eventually make, however fervently they hope they can avoid it. In a months time it will just be even more obvious that this cannot happen, particularly if the reports of how Japan's collective head is in the sand are accurate. The Japanese health service will be utterly overwhelmed by then and clearly incapable of hosting such a thing.

Three months in advance is also comfortably long enough to call the thing off. It would hardly be the last minute call that was made before the Wales-Scotland Rugby match, for example.

[San Bernardhinault]

I feel a little bad for all the athletes who still have to behave as though they're training to peak in 4 months, just in case.

[ursus arctos]

I very much doubt that many will be doing that once they read all these stories (and are perhaps briefed by their national federations). The better-resourced will already be working on new training calendars.

[ursus arctos]

Canada confirms that it won't send athletes to Tokyo in 2020

Hopefully this accelerates the official postponement

[Hot Pepsi]

Canada wouldn’t do that if they thought they might be anywhere close to alone.

[tee rex]

Rugby league canned in Aus/NZ. An attempt at a limited NZ rugby competition also fails.

I despair at the reality-resistance of so many sports administrators. Takes them weeks to work out the blindingly obvious.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Golf has the issue of just not having any time in its calendar, even when it does resume, to reschedule major events, even if things were to resume in, say, August. By then, the FedEx Cup series is meant to be in full swing, and the major banks and companies who put up the money for those events are not happily going to stand aside, never mind FedEx who put up the overall $15m bonus pot. Then there's the Ryder Cup, which is arguably bigger than any of the majors. So the only chance of playing majors in 2020 seems to be to play them in October and November, just about possible for the US Open maybe if they played it in SoCal or Florida, but fairly unlikely to see a Masters at Augusta or an Open anywhere in the UK. They'd have to take the Open to Dubai or somewhere. I just can't see it happening.

[Satchmo Distel]

Can we assume that the Olympics would have to be rescheduled for summer 2021 rather than Autumn 2020? The latter would still feel unrealistic.

OTOH that would mean losing a World or European Athletics Championships or having two major events in the same year.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Can we assume that the Olympics would have to be rescheduled for summer 2021 rather than Autumn 2020? The latter would still feel unrealistic.

OTOH that would mean losing a World or European Athletics Championships or having two major events in the same year.

Are there any athletes for whom 2020 was genuinely going to be their swansong, and 2021 might be another year too many? Mo Farah or anyone?

Or indeed anyone bang at their peak now who might have younger rivals next year they would have beaten this year - maybe in the sprints, where Bolt aside most people seem to have a peak couple of years before the next generation takes over?

[Sporting]

Good for dopers as one would assume interim/surprise testing is very much going to be on hold.

[Hot Pepsi]

Can we assume that the Olympics would have to be rescheduled for summer 2021 rather than Autumn 2020? The latter would still feel unrealistic.

OTOH that would mean losing a World or European Athletics Championships or having two major events in the same year.

Something has to give. Or the whole calendar could be shifted by a year.

[Crystal Staples]

So many top athletes would pull out of the World championships if there was an Olympics in the same year. Might just have to bite the bullet and let Eugene be host city for the next champs that haven't been bid for yet, 2025 I think.

[ursus arctos]

The primary issue with Autumn 2020 is that the rights holders (especially NBC, which put up 75 percent of the total) calculated their bid on the basis of a summer window and conditioned the contracts on that timing. Autumn would not be as valuable to them due to the commitments they have to other sports.

There's also the uncertainty that the crisis would be over in time, of course (particularly in terms of training)

[Ray de Galles]

Golf has the issue of just not having any time in its calendar, even when it does resume, to reschedule major events, even if things were to resume in, say, August. By then, the FedEx Cup series is meant to be in full swing, and the major banks and companies who put up the money for those events are not happily going to stand aside, never mind FedEx who put up the overall $15m bonus pot. Then there's the Ryder Cup, which is arguably bigger than any of the majors. So the only chance of playing majors in 2020 seems to be to play them in October and November, just about possible for the US Open maybe if they played it in SoCal or Florida, but fairly unlikely to see a Masters at Augusta or an Open anywhere in the UK. They'd have to take the Open to Dubai or somewhere. I just can't see it happening.

I can see the Ryder Cup being postponed a year (and back on its old pre-September 11 attacks schedule of happening on odd years not even) to free up some late season time for the majors.

[Hot Pepsi]

In case this hasn't been addressed elsewhere, have they said - or is it assumed - that Euro 2021 will serve as the qualifiers for the World Cup?

[Satchmo Distel]

No, I think it's assumed that there would still be time to hold separate qualifiers.

[Ray de Galles]

Yeah, there hasn't been any talk of that at all and I don't really see how it would work.

[Hot Pepsi]

The way teams finish 1-whatever in Euro 2021 determines who gets the slots for 2022. Simple.

[ursus arctos]

So no country that failed to qualify for 2021 would be eligible for 2022?

There is no way that would get a majority within UEFA.

[Ray de Galles]

Agreed, it's a non-starter and would be wildly unfair - and I speak as a supporter of a nation that is at the Euros and is desperate to see them at a World Cup...even Qatar.