Hyderabad: The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) has decided to postpone the World Team Table Championships 2020 scheduled to be held in Busan, South Korea due to the Coronavirus epidemic in East Asia.
“In light of the emerging situation in the Korean Republic and to best preserve the health and safety of players, officials and fans, the Hana Bank 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships in Busan have been postponed with the dates of 21-28 June provisionally reserved,” said an ITTF statement.
A meeting was also held between the ITTF'S senior management and the Korea Table Tennis Association (KTTA) in Busan. After the meeting, the tournament has been rescheduled for June.
37 teams have already withdrawn their names from various tournaments due to spread of Coronavirus in China's neighbouring countries. On Monday, South Korea temporarily postponed its football league, the K-League.
Earlier, organizers of Tokyo Olympics 2020 in Japan postponed their volunteer training programme due to the same reason.
The World Athletics Championships, scheduled to take place in China in 2020, was also postponed for a year. Citing health risk Indian women's badminton team abandoned the Badminton Asian Championships in Manila.
Along with this, the Asian Olympic Qualifiers for boxing was called off and shifted to Jordan. Women's football qualifying tournament was also taken out of Wuhan.
