Sports bodies around the world have called off events in a bid to prevent the spread of COVID-19, with athletics, baseball, tennis, and table tennis events among the top-level cancelations in Taiwan.
The New Taipei City Marathon on March 15 has been canceled, the final Olympic baseball qualifying tournament in Taichung and Douliu City from April 1 to 5 was postponed to June 17 to 21, the ATP Taipei Challenger from March 30 to April 5 was postponed, the Asian Cup table tennis event in Tainan on March 8 was postponed and the XTERRA Asia-Pacific Championships offroad triathlon and duathlon in Taiwan on March 28 and 29 was canceled.
In Kuala Lumpur, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) suspended all tournaments from tomorrow until April 12.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The suspension of the circuit will come into effect following the completion of the Yonex All England Open in Birmingham on Sunday [today],” it said in a statement.
In London, Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen advanced to the semi-finals at the All England Open on Friday with a 21-11, 21-12 win over fellow Taiwanese Wang Tzu-wei in Birmingham.
In France, Germany’s Maximilian Schachmann held on to the overall lead of the Paris-Nice on Friday, with racing set to go ahead yesterday, despite the pandemic.
The final stage scheduled for today was canceled, with French rider Romain Bardet criticizing a “lack of unity” in the peloton.
With a fine solo finish under bright blue skies, Belgium’s Tiesj Benoot won the 161.5km run through the Luberon hills to Apt in Provence in the southeast of France on Friday.
Benoot climbed to second in the overall standings, trailing Schachmann by 36 seconds.
Two other key challengers also strengthened their bids as Colombian climber Sergio Higuita moved to within 1 minute, 1second and third overall, while Italian Vincenzo Nibali was 1 minute, 18 seconds back in sixth.
Yesterday’s summit finish atop La Colmiane was to provide the finale to the race.
Bardet said he had mixed feelings about continuing with the race on Friday.
“We were racing flat out. I had fun out there, why not let yourself go a bit, even if it makes no sense racing in this context,” Bardet said. “Some are leaving, others are not, we may end up with 30 riders. I wonder where the meaning is in there... We’re out on our little ride as if nothing has happened.”
Schachmann had been in a group about 20 seconds adrift of Benoot, but crashed on the final descent less than 1km from home.
New Zealand abandoned their one-day cricket tour of Australia after Wellington tightened border restrictions to combat the virus’ spread.
The Blacks Caps lost the opening game of the three-match series on Friday and were due to play the second in Sydney today, but they were to fly home immediately after New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that everyone entering the country from midnight today would have to self-isolate for 14 days.
Meanwhile, the Indian Premier League postponed the start of the world’s most lucrative cricket competition.
The start of the Twenty20 tournament has been put back from March 29 until April 15 because of the coronavirus, the Board of Control for Cricket in India said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier