The world’s governing body of basketball, FIBA, has announced a decision to postpone for one year the 2021 European Men’s Basketball Championship in view of the previously suspended Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, the FIBA press office announced in a statement on Thursday, APA reports citing TASS.
"FIBA's Executive Committee met today via video conference for an extraordinary meeting concerning the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic to the FIBA Calendar," the statement reads.
Yoshiro Mori, the head of the Tokyo-2020 Olympics Local Organizing Committee, announced on March 30 that the Summer Olympic Games in Japan next year will start on July 23 and the Summer Paralympic Games will begin on August 24. The agreement on the new dates have been reached after a telephone conversation of Mori with President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach on March 30. The new timeframe was backed by the IOC, the Tokyo-2020 Olympics Local Organizing Committee, the municipal authorities of Tokyo and the government of Japan.
"FIBA welcomed last week the confirmation of the revised dates for Tokyo 2020, July 23 - August 8, 2021, and thanked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its collaborative and timely resolution to this complex situation," according to the statement from FIBA.
"After careful analysis of the possible scenarios and following the recommendations of the Regional Offices and of the Competitions Commission, the FIBA Executive Committee has made the following adjustments to the calendar: the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments will be played in the period between June 22 and July 4, 2021 (exact dates pending IOC approval)," the statement said adding that "the FIBA EuroBasket 2021 and the FIBA AmeriCup 2021 are rescheduled to the period between September 1-18, 2022."
The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo were scheduled to be held between July 24 and August 9, and the 2020 Summer Paralympic Games were planned to be organized between August 25 and September 6. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the IPC (the International Paralympic Committee) announced their decision on March 24 to postpone for one year the tournaments in Japan due to the continuous COVID-19 spread.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 1,560,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 91,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far over 345,800 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 10,131 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 698 patients having recovered from the virus. Moscow accounts for the majority of cases (6,698). Russia’s latest data indicates 76 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.
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