WHEN THE STADIUMS FELL SILENT
Sport was stopped in its tracks by the coronavirus. The Tokyo Olympics and Euro 2020 football may be the major casualties, but no sport escaped the delay wrought by the rampaging global pandemic
The pandemic caused the most significant disruption to sport since the Second World War. Around the world, sportspersons, fans, officials and staff in the industry suffered when sporting events were either cancelled or postponed since March.
The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and Paralympics were the first major casualty. It was postponed for a year, and the delay had a cascading effect on other events. New dates had to be found for the 2021 World Beach Games and the 2021 World Games to avoid a clash with the Olympics.
AFP
A woman wearing a face mask walks past the Olympic rings installation in Tokyo on August 24, 2020.
Athletics was the worst affected. The dates of the World Athletics Championships, the World Athletics Indoor Championships and the London Marathon had to be rejigged. The Diamond League is yet to be completed.
Football leagues and other competitions across the world came to a standstill amid the possibility of them turning into super-spreading events.
The Euro 2020 and Copa America were delayed by a year, the Euro 2021 Women’s Championship has also been pushed back to 2022, and the knockout rounds of the AFC Champions League have been moved back.
Tennis took a break and tweaked its calendar. Wimbledon was cancelled, and the French Open was pushed to September. But the US Open opened in a New York ‘bio-bubble’. The women’s Rogers Cup tournament in Montreal will now have to wait at least until 2021.
Stumped by the pandemic, cricket had its longest gap between matches in 37 years. There hasn’t been any major cricketing action since March 16 until July 8 when England hosted the Test series against the West India. The international and domestic schedules in all cricket-playing countries have been thrown into disarray.
This necessitated some major changes to the calendar of events. The International Cricket Council (ICC) had to alter the dates of five World Cups.
The 2020 and 2021 editions of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup were postponed by a year, and the 2023 Cricket World Cup will take place eight months later than planned. The 2021 Women's Cricket World Cup too has been delayed by a year.
Reuters
A person wearing a face mask walks past the Euro 2020 countdown clock in St Petersburg, Russia, on March 16.
The coronavirus crept into the world of cycling too. Several events were cancelled, and the Tour de France that was to start in June is now looking at a finish on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on September 20. It will be followed by the Giro d’Italia, the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the Tour des Flandres, the Spanish Vuelta, the Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Lombardy; all of them will run in October. But the European Road Cycling Championships had to be put off to next year.
The pandemic didn’t spare aquatic sports either. Swimming was the worst hit with the 2020 European Aquatics Championships, the World Aquatics Championships, and the FINA World Swimming Championships in Abu Dhabi suffering delays.
The high-octane world of motorsport was brought to a screeching halt by the contagion. But NASCAR and IndyCar seasons did well to resume after delays. The Le Mans 24 hours race missed its June start, so did the race at St Petersburg, Florida, which is now expected to come under the starters orders on October 25. Formula One, the biggest of them, too endured a delayed start to the season.
American sports too endured an unwelcome disruption caused by the rampaging virus. But National Basketball Association managed to resume after halting mid-season when a Utah Jazz player tested positive.
The National Hockey League had suspended play in mid-March with 189 games remaining, but later allowed teams to reopen training facilities. The NHL had initially decided to play regular-season games in the Czech Republic and Finland, only to scrap the Global Series.
Major League Baseball suspended spring training games and delayed the start of its regular season by at least two weeks. Major League Soccer too has belated beginning to its season by 30 days.
The Augusta Masters too couldn’t escape the virus-induced delay, and the world’s top golfers were unable to take to the fairways in April. Dustin Johnson of the United States was crowned the jacket winner in November, but there were no crowds to cheer him.