Athletics
HOW CORONAVIRUS HAS AFFECTED WORLD OF SPORT
2020 OLYMPIC GAMES
In doubt
The scale of the outbreak in Japan saw senior International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound describe the disease as ‘the new war’ threatening Tokyo 2020 and he warned the Games may have to be cancelled if the virus was still around by May.
The Japanese government later insisted Pound’s comments were not the IOC’s official stance but there remains doubts over whether the summer showcase can still go ahead with health concerns.
Athletes have been told to keep training and the plan remains to hold the Games in Japan as planned but training for around 80,000 volunteers has been delayed for at least two months- it was due to begin on February 22.
ATHLETICS
Cancelled
World Athletics Indoor Championships (March 13-15 in Nanjing) is off until 2021.
North Korea cancelled the Pyongyang Marathon scheduled for April after imposing a border lockdown due to the level of outbreak in South Korea.
The Seoul Marathon is cancelled in a bid to protect runners following the mass outbreak in South Korea.
In doubt
A mixed relay Olympic triathlon qualification event scheduled for Chengdu, China in May is moved to Valencia, pending an outbreak in Spain.
BADMINTON
Cancelled
German Open (March 3-8), Vietnam Open (March 24-29) and Polish Open (March 26-29), all Olympic qualifying events, are cancelled due to ‘strict health protection’.
BOXING
Cancelled
Olympic boxing qualifiers to be staged in Wuhan were cancelled by the International Olympic Committee, and now are relocated to occur in Amman from March 3-11
The IBF title fight between Daniele Scardina and Andrew Francillette in Milan on February 28 was postponed by Matchroom due to restrictions in Italy following the outbreak.
The Japanese boxing commission cancelled all fight cards scheduled for March on government advice to suspend all pending sporting fixtures. They will not be rescheduled.
CYCLING
In doubt
Danish cyclist Michael Morkov has been cleared to race at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships after being kept in isolation over fears of an outbreak of coronavirus.
Morkov, 34, had travelled to Berlin on Thursday after contesting the first four stages of the UAE Tour, the final two stages of which were then cancelled after two members of staff on the race were suspected of having the disease.
Riders and staff on the UAE Tour have been in lockdown since but, after the Abu Dhabi Department of Health issued a statement on Saturday saying 167 tests had come back negative, the UCI said Morkov was free to race as normal.
FOOTBALL
Cancelled
All domestic fixtures at all levels
are postponed by the Chinese Football Association as the season is pushed back
due to the scale of the outbreak in China.
Asian Champions League matches involving Guangzhou Evergrande, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai SIPG are postponed until April.
The start of the Korean K-League season is postponed. The four teams in the AFC Champions League playing their matches behind closed doors.
Japan’s J-League postponed all domestic games until the middle of March.
Inter Milan’s game against Sampdoria was one of four Serie A games cancelled last weekend due to affected regions in Italy leading to advice from the prime minister to call off sporting events.
Serie A then announced on Saturday that five of this weekend’s fixtures, including the title showdown between Juventus and Inter Milan, have been cancelled.
Impacted
The home leg of the Chinese women’s national team’s Olympic qualification play-off against South Korea set for March is switched to Sydney. The squad are held in quarantine upon their arrival in Australia for January’s qualifying group stage due to fears of virus carriers.
Inter Milan’s Europa League match against Ludogorets on February 27 will be played behind closed doors. Only TV rights-holders are allowed to attend as media as the club look to secure the San Siro. Ludogorets players arrived in Italy wearing face masks.
Serie A announced five matches on February 28-March 1 will be played behind closed doors, including Juventus v Inter Milan in Turin, a huge match between title rivals.
Newcastle United have banned their players from shaking hands with each other amid coronavirus fears.
Three players from third-division Italian football club US Pianese have tested positive for coronavirus, the Tuscany side confirmed on Friday.
In doubt
England’s friendly against Italy at Wembley in March is now in doubt as the FA holds crisis talks following the outbreak in northern Italy.
Israel has warned citizens to avoid all international travel, which raises questions whether supporters or players will travel to Scotland for their Euro 2020 play-off match on March 26.
Growing concerns that some matches at Euro 2020 could be called off if the coronavirus outbreak gets worse between now and the summer. The tournament is set to be multi-city. UEFA admit they are in a ‘waiting stage’ and must follow the orders of the individual countries involved.
FORMULA ONE
Cancelled
The Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai on April 19 is postponed with no decision over whether it will be reinserted into the 2020 calendar for later in the season.
In doubt
The Australian Grand Prix will go ahead despite an emergency response plan being enacted across the country to deal with the virus. The chief executive of the tourism council says that Victoria cannot afford for the event to be cancelled.
The Bahrain Grand Prix is still planned to go ahead despite a number of flights from Dubai and the UAE into the country being cancelled this week due to coronavirus fears.
There are growing concerns over whether the inaugural Vietnam Grand Prix (scheduled to take place in Hanoi on April 5) will go ahead.
GOLF
Cancelled
The Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific golf championship, slated to take place from February 12-15 in Thailand, was postponed and has been rescheduled for October.
The Honda LPGA Thailand event in Pattaya, Thailand scheduled for February 20-23 along with the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore, scheduled to start on February 27, were both postponed
The PGA Tour Series-China postponed two qualifying tournaments and delayed the start of its 2020 campaign by two months, cutting the number of regular season events down from 14 to 10.
The decision was made to cancel the LPGA Blue Bay tournament in China, with the event at Hainan Island (due to start on March 5) seen as dangerous to players’ health
The European Tour postponed the Maybank Championship (April 16-19 in Kuala Lumpur) and Volvo China Open (April 23-26 in Shenzhen).
Impacted
Lorenzo Gagli and Edoardo Molinari were withdrawn from the Oman Open on medical grounds after Gagli showed symptoms of the virus. He shared a hotel room with Molinari and he was told to self-isolate. They were later reinstated to the tournament after testing negative for the virus.
HORSE RACING
Impacted
The Japan Racing Association revealed that ‘government-sanctioned races’ will go behind closed doors.
In doubt
Cheltenham festival is in doubt as organisers set up a steering group to consider the danger posed by the virus, just 13 days prior to the prestigious Gold Cup event
RUGBY
Cancelled
Scotland Women’s Six Nations match with Italy on February 23 is postponed due to an outbreak in the Milan area.
Ireland’s Six Nations meeting with Italy on March 7 is postponed.
Ospreys and Ulster’s Pro14 trips to play in Italy on February 29 are postponed. Ospreys were due to play Zebre in Parma with Treviso the venue for Ulster’s game against Benetton.
The Italian Rugby Federation suspended its National Championship and youth games for February 28-March 1.
Hong Kong Rugby Sevens is postponed, which is a blow to Olympic preparations for Team GB.
In doubt
Scottish rugby announced preparations ‘continue as normal’ as they discuss with French rugby whether to proceed with their Six Nations match on March 8 following a second coronavirus death in France.
All of Italy’s remaining Six Nations fixtures – they are due to host England in their final game on March 14 – are in serious doubt given the scale of the outbreak in Italy
TENNIS
Cancelled
The final of an ATP Challenger event in Bergamo, Italy, between Enzo Couacaud and Illya Marchenko of Ukraine is cancelled. Both players received ranking points and prize money for getting to the final. They were denied the opportunity to play behind closed doors.
China forfeited a Davis Cup tie because the men’s team were unable to travel to Romania for the March 6-7 playoff.
WTA event Xi’an Open (set for April 13-19) is cancelled due to fears over player safety. WTA announced they are assessing their schedule with a number of events set for China in the second half of the season.
Impacted
Japan’s home Davis Cup tie against Ecuador next week is now set to be played behind closed doors.
In doubt
WTA event Kunming Open is considered for cancellation after Xi’an Open was called off. It is due to start on April 27.
OTHER SPORTS
Cancelled
Cycling’s United Arab Emirates Tour has been cancelled with Chris Froome tested for coronavirus and Mark Cavendish put into lockdown in his hotel room.
South Korean baseball league cancelled all 50 pre-season game which were slated to take place from March 14-24. It is the first time since the leagues inception in 1982 that an entire set of exhibition matches are off.
The first-stage draw for the Table Tennis World Championships, scheduled for South Korea from March 22-29, is postponed.
A beach volleyball tournament, due to be held in Yangzhou from April 22-26, is postponed until after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
World Short track speed skating championship in Seoul is cancelled.
Impacted
The Japanese professional baseball league made the decision to play their 72 pre-season games behind closed doors until March 15. Baseball is among the most popular sports in Japan.
In doubt
The South Korean baseball league regular season is in doubt ahead of the first round of matches on March 28. An emergency meeting has been called.
Doubts remain as the Asian weightlifting championships, scheduled for March, are relocated from Kazakhstan to neighbouring Uzbekistan. They could still be postponed.
-Daily Mail
The Future Olympian Athletics Classic has been rescheduled from the first quarter of 2026 to the last quarter of the year, as organisers move to transform the meet into a truly national developmental programme spanning Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones.
In a statement signed by Bruce Ijirigho, a former quarter-miler and Team Nigeria captain to the 1976 Summer Olympics, the postponement was described as a strategic decision aimed at broadening participation and ensuring that young talents across the country are discovered and nurtured systematically.
The competition is being organised by the Youth Sports Renaissance Foundation (YSRF), a non-profit organisation registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission by Ijirigho, Godwin Obasogie and Charlton Ehizuelen. The foundation’s primary objective is to revive athletics, particularly at the secondary school level, and rebuild Nigeria’s once-thriving grassroots sports culture.
Ijirigho, who serves as Project Lead, explained that the initiative is not about creating something entirely new but about restoring a proven system that once produced champions.
“This competition is not about reinventing the wheel,” he said. “It is about bringing back the culture that ensured that my contemporaries and I were discovered early in secondary school, received the right coaching and academic support, and went on to earn scholarships while combining sports with education. Many of us later became national, continental and global champions.”
He identified early exposure and modern, age-appropriate coaching as the missing links in youth development across Nigeria and much of Africa.
“The bane of sports in Nigeria and many African countries is that our youth don’t get opportunities early enough and lack modern coaching techniques that accelerate their development,” Ijirigho stated.
According to him, the Future Olympian Athletics Classic will go beyond competition by incorporating international coaching clinics designed to transfer contemporary skills and knowledge to Games masters and grassroots coaches nationwide.
“The Classic will not only discover talents in their early teens but also upgrade the capacity of our coaches. That way, we will nurture them properly to become Olympians and world beaters in their late teens and early twenties. This programme is strictly for high school students because it is developmental.”
The decision to expand the event to all six geopolitical zones, he noted, reflects a commitment to inclusivity and equal opportunity.
“Talents abound in every nook and cranny of the country. There are middle- and long-distance runners, sprinters, quarter-milers, jumpers and hurdlers who were either not discovered at all or discovered too late. With this postponement, we can widen the tent and give every Nigerian child a fair chance.”
Ijirigho expressed confidence that with proper planning and sustained grassroots investment, Nigeria can reclaim its place at the summit of global athletics.
“We have what it takes to dominate athletics worldwide. All we need is to get our development programme right. The Future Olympian Athletics Classic will lay that foundation for our youth and for the country when it begins in the last quarter of 2026.”
With its expanded national scope and emphasis on structured youth development, the initiative signals a renewed push to reposition Nigerian athletics for long-term global success.
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Kenya’s Ezra Kipchumba Kering delivered a commanding Valentine’s Day performance to win the 11th edition of the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon on Saturday.
Kipchumba surged to the finish line at Eko Atlantic City in an impressive time of 2:11:55, clinching the $50,000 winner’s prize in one of Africa’s most prestigious road races. His decisive kick in the closing stages sealed a memorable triumph in a fiercely contested men’s elite race.
Uganda completed a strong showing on the podium, with Lomoi Samuel finishing just four seconds behind the winner in 2:11:59, while compatriot Namutala Kephar Lumbasi secured third place in 2:12:25 to underline East Africa’s dominance in the men’s event.
The Gold Label marathon, organised by Nilayo Sports Management Limited under the leadership of Managing Director Mrs Yetunde Olopade, once again lived up to its billing as a premier long-distance spectacle, attracting top-tier athletes from across the continent and beyond.
In the women’s race, Ethiopia’s Dinke Meseret Meleka claimed top honours, crossing the line in 2:37:36 after a determined run. Kenya’s Daniel Flomena Cheyech followed closely in 2:37:43, while Ethiopia’s Getaw Wgagen Zewdalem finished third in 2:38:59 to complete a tightly fought podium finish.
With another thrilling chapter added to its history, the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon reaffirmed its growing stature as a leading destination for elite runners and a major highlight on Africa’s athletics calendar.
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By Kunle Solaja.
The organisers of the gold-labelled Access Bank Lagos City Marathon have described Saturday’s 11th edition as an iconic milestone that ushers in a new decade for one of Africa’s most prestigious road races.
Speaking at a press conference held at the headquarters of Access Bank in Lagos, the Managing Director of Nilayo Sports Management Limited, Mrs Yetunde Olopade, said the 2026 edition represents growth, resilience and renewed ambition for the marathon.
“This 11th edition is symbolic for us. It is not just another race; it signals the beginning of another decade of excellence, impact and global recognition for the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon,” Olopade said.
She expressed appreciation to Access Bank, corporate sponsors and the Lagos State Government for their unwavering support and commitment to the annual event.
“We are deeply grateful to Access Bank, our valued sponsors and the Lagos State Government for their consistency and belief in this vision. Together, we have built one of the most revered road races in Africa, and this year’s event will be nothing short of world-class,” she added.
Olopade assured runners, partners and spectators of a top-quality race that would further consolidate the marathon’s international standing and enhance its global profile.
Also speaking at the event, the Director General of the Lagos State Sports Commission, Lekan Fatodu, commended the organisers for their professionalism and dedication, noting that the marathon has continued to elevate Lagos’ image globally.
“The Lagos State Government remains fully committed to supporting the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon because it continues to put Lagos on the global map in a positive light,” Fatodu said.
“This race is more than a sporting event; it is a celebration of our culture, resilience and capacity to host world-class events. We will continue to provide the enabling environment for it to thrive.”
Adding his voice, Dr Nadeem Khan, President of the International Association of Ultra Runners, described the marathon’s evolution over the years as remarkable.
“The progression I have seen at the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon is truly phenomenal. Year after year, the race keeps improving in standards, organisation and global appeal,” Khan said.
The 2026 edition is expected to attract elite athletes from across the world, further reinforcing the marathon’s reputation as one of Africa’s leading road races and a flagship sporting event for Nigeria.
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