2021 World Indoors postponed

Sports came to a standstill in 2020, and one could only wonder what lies ahead for 2021.

Major pandemics could last quite a while, and a number of experts predict the current one to carry on for about two years. This means the 2021 sports calendar could be in jeopardy as well.

The granddaddy of sports events, the Olympics, has already been pushed back to 2021, and organizers have since gone on record to say that it won’t be postponed again.

This past week, the first sign that 2021 will be another trying year for sports occurred when World Athletics (WA) decided to postpone its world indoor championships. The 18th version of the event was originally scheduled for March 13-15, 2020, in Nanjing, China, was postponed to 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic ballooned out of control, and now is being postponed again – this time to 2023. The 2022 meet will go on, meaning the biennial event will now be held for three successive years; in 2022, 2023 and again in 2024. The event is usually held once every two years, in even years.

Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations (BAAA) President Drumeco Archer remains steadfast that it’s not a cause for major concern as far as the staging of major sports events in 2021 is concerned.

“I believe that what you are seeing is just an extra move of caution by the organizers,” he said. “It doesn’t disrupt the cycle that much because initially there wouldn’t have been any world indoors in 2023. We have approximately seven months before the Olympics and everything else leading up to that are really just tune-up meets. I believe this latest move is actually a relief to a lot of athletes because they would not have had a full indoor season when the biggest event of the season is outdoors, and that’s the Olympics. In any normal Olympic year, athletes tend not to have a full indoor season, so the postponement won’t have any adverse effect.”

This is happening while China is experiencing a sharp decline in coronavirus numbers, but the deadly disease is still rampant in major cities and regions in the world. The United States continues to struggle with containment of the virus with north of 100,000 cases on a daily basis. Other countries in Europe and Asia experience thousands of positive cases on a daily bases.

“It really doesn’t surprise me that Nanjing is postponing the world indoors when you consider what is going on in the United States and in the midst of Europe’s greatest fight with COVID,” said Archer. “With many of the athletes coming from regions that are still heavily infested with COVID-19, it makes it extremely difficult to stage the world indoors at this time and have a safe and successful meet.”

Be that as it may, Archer said he doesn’t believe it will have an adverse effect on the remainder of the sports year.

“Invitationals are designed in such a way that they are being held under strict safety and social distancing measures,” he said. “There is a level of control that will minimize the spread of COVID-19 and testing protocols are in effect to reduce the likelihood of any outbreak. The meets are being properly managed, and it has to be that way because there are thousands of athletes from all over the world who will be competing in one place.

“COVID has dealt an uncertain blow to almost every sports organization out there and postponements have become a habit with sports meets everywhere. With the Olympics being pushed back, that caused a domino effect for other major meets and now we’re seeing a continuance of that with the postponement of the world indoors. I don’t think that athletes were comfortable going to Nanjing in any event given the circumstances. These are interesting times, but this is the new norm. Our greatest task is to keep the athletes safe while we go through this transition, and of course keep them motivated and encouraged, so that they could be in the best possible shape for when these events do happen.”

Meet organizers, together with the Chinese Athletics Association, said in a statement that with uncertainty surrounding the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in the early part of 2021, and given the current global situation, they decided to postpone the 2021 World Athletics World Indoor Championships again. The global meet is now set for the Nanjing’s Cube at Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park, from March 17-19, 2023.

“For the safety of our athletes and technical officials, we must duly consider the risks in bringing a large group of people to attend the event under the pandemic situation and fully respect and carry out the pandemic prevention policy of the host country. The indoor season for athletics falls within a narrow calendar window (up to the end of March), so it is not possible to extend the event to later in the year,” World Athletics said in a statement.

The global athletics body further stated that its preference is for the city of Nanjing to remain the host, given the extensive planning and preparation they put into the staging of this event. The 2022 World Athletics World Indoor Championships is still on the schedule, set for March 11-13, 2022, at the Belgrade Arena, in Belgrade, Serbia.

Despite this postponement of the 2021 world indoors, athletes who compete indoors are still expected to have substantial competitive opportunities available in the early part of 2021, through the World Athletics World Indoor Tour, which comprises 26 meets spread across 12 countries in Europe and North America. The tour runs from the end of January to the end of February 2021.

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