Beijing: China’s General Administration of Sport issued an order on July 9th to cancel nearly all remaining international sporting events that will be held in China for the remainder of 2020, citing coronavirus concerns.
The order does not reportedly affect any sports that would be considered as qualifying events for the Tokyo Olympics, and the trials for the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games, which are slated to take place in Beijing.
Following the decision by China’s top sports body, and since Badminton World Federation (BWF) has announced that tournaments rescheduled for the end of 2020, will not count towards the Tokyo Olympic qualification, three BWF events what will be held in China including China Open in Changzhou from Sept 15th to Sept 20th, Fuzhou China Open from Nov 3rd to Nov 8th and the World Tour Finals in Guangzhou, from Dec 16th to Dec 20th will likely be canceled.
Meanwhile, the highest governing body of Tennis, Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), and Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) have canceled a total of 11 international tennis tournaments that were scheduled to be held in China this year, including the Shanghai Masters and WTA Finals.
Other sports such as Formula One’s Shanghai Grand Prix was also affected by this order.
In response to the announcement made by China’s General Administration of Sport, BWF had published a statement on July 12 with the following message:
“The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is aware of the directive announced by the General Administration of Sport of China regarding the restriction of international sports for the rest of 2020.
BWF is in close contact with its relevant partners including the Chinese Badminton Association (CBA) to get more clarity on the situation and how this affects the BWF Tournament Calendar 2020.
There will be no further comment at this point in time.”
