With more than 100,000 people infected by coronavirus globally, large scale events held by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. have been canceled. Sports events aren’t that far behind either – Asian 20km Race Walk Championships, Indian Women’s Hockey Tour of China, Women’s Golf World Championship 2020 & Thailand Open, 2020 Qatar MotoGP, 2020 Paris Half Marathon, 2020 Pyongyang Marathon, etc. have all been canceled.
Sports events that are held every year have a lot of planning put into it for the rest of the year, and they are getting affected in some or the other way. The events are either getting canceled or the athletes performing in front of empty seats without the fans – is becoming the new norm.
Many US fans feel that playing and being a part of the game through a casino in the US is far safer than venturing out of the country. First emerged in Wuhan, China, the virus is affecting 97 countries and territories around the world.
Premier League clubs have been told to avoid handshakes pregame and have also been told to plan and get comfortable with playing matches without crowds.
Their twitter handle says:
The Premier League fair-play handshake will not take place between players and match officials from this weekend until further notice based on medical advice
WHO conducted a conference call in which a number of medical professionals and officials from the various Olympics sports federations participated last week. Fan-free Olympics was taken into consideration with its benefits and risks discussed at length.
A screening process can and should be put into place, according to WHO officials, where participants, fans, athletes can be categorized into risk profiles based on what region of the world they come from.
Talking about the Tokyo Olympics, as of now, it’s set to go as planned, but the future is uncertain. It is unclear whether it will be conducted empty-chaired, that is, without the fans, or will it be postponed or canceled, only time will tell.
“As far as we all know, we’re going to be in Tokyo,” says Dick Pound, committee member of the International Olympics. Mark Adam, the spokesperson of IOC, says, “We made a decision, and the decision is the games go ahead.”
Organizers might wait until May before taking the final decision, but Thomas Bach, president of IOC, says he would like to “encourage all the athletes to continue their preparation for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 with great confidence and with full steam.”
