Sporting Events In Asia Get Postponed Or Cancelled Due To Coronavirus

As China’s sporting calendar becomes unraveled due to ongoing issues related to the deadly coronavirus epidemic, the sports calendars of other Asian regions have now begun to be affected. Multiple sporting events have now been either cancelled or rescheduled across different sports.

The latest casualty in the sports world comes from the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) who confirmed this week that their HSBC Women’s World Champions event in Singapore, as well as the LPGA Thailand event will be cancelled. This is the third of the LPGA’s popular early-season events in Asia that the US LPGA Tour has been forced to cancel, after the cancellation 10 days ago of the Blue Bay tournament in China.

The women’s Asia Pacific Amateur Championship, originally scheduled for next week has also been cancelled, while the PGA Tour’s third-tier series in China will now have its qualifying events transferred to Thailand and Indonesia. The Hong Kong Women’s Open has now been rescheduled to May.

There is no announcement yet regarding the men’s European Tour as well as the prestigious China Open in April, set to be held in Shenzhen.

ET NOW

Football Schedules Affecting Teams Worldwide

China’s football scene has been rocked by the suspension of all domestic football matches, as well as the suspension of the premiere Chinese football league, the Chinese Super League, which was scheduled to begin on Feb. 22.

Continental contests were also affected by China’s decision, as the home group matches of four Chinese teams in the AFC Champions League—which kicks off this week—were postponed to April and May.

The future of Asia’s World Cup qualifying matches next month remains up in the air. China is originally supposed to host the Maldives team on March 26, then travel to Guam after five days. Nearby countries to China, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, may also be affected by this. A women’s Olympic qualifying event between China, Australia, Thailand, and Taiwan was initially scheduled for last week in Wuhan, where coronavirus first emerged—it has now been moved, first to Nanjing, then to Sydney.

The women’s football team from China were quarantined in their hostel in Brisbane, but have now been cleared to play; the tournament is set to end this week.

While all sports have been affected, some more notable sports scheduling issues include the cancellation of the Hong Kong Marathon, the Chinese Formula E Grand Prix, the China Open for snooker and the China Masters tournament for badminton