BWF monitoring coronavirus situation, no changes yet

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) reported yesterday that it was closely monitoring the situation regarding the outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV but that no decisions had yet been made on venue changes or tournament cancellations.

The BWF report pointed to recent interruptions of travel into and out of China and said that the organization was “mindful of the complications this may have on the HSBC BWF World Tour, other BWF-sanctioned tournaments, and the badminton community in general”.  Indonesia’s Antara news agency reported this week that the Indonesian Foreign Ministry had advised citizens still at home to reconsider plans to visit China, while the Chinese government has imposed what has been described as a “lockdown” on Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is deemed to be the epicentre of the outbreak.

Indonesia has over three dozen players entered in the upcoming Lingshui China Masters.  The $90,000 Super 100 event is scheduled to be held from February 25th to March 1st.  Lingshui is on the southern island of Hainan, which this week reported its first death from the 2019-nCoV virus.  On Tuesday, the International Cycling Union (UCI) announced that its Tour of Hainan cycling race, to be held the same week, would be postponed.

In addition to the Lingshui event, the major concern is over the Badminton Asia Championships, scheduled to be held in Wuhan nearly 3 months from now.  The BWF confirmed that the Badminton Asia Confederation is reviewing the situation but that it was too early to reach an conclusions on the tournament, which carries ranking points equivalent to a Super 500 event and is the last tournament at which top Asian players can earn points toward qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics.

Photo: Badmintonphoto