Athletics was left with the prospect of a lost season on Thursday after this summer’s European Championships, set to be held in Paris, were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement, the
event’s organising committee and French Athletics Federation (FFA) said they “wished
to adopt a responsible position by putting human health and the fight against
the spread of the virus before any other consideration”.
The championships
were scheduled for August 25-30. The cancellation follows the postponement in
March of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021 and the announcement earlier on Thursday of
the postponement of Diamond League events in Eugene, Oregon, and Paris.
“We really tried,”
said Jean Gracia, president of the Paris European Championships organising
committee. “We all hoped that the situation might improve rapidly, but
unfortunately that wasn’t the case,”
“We looked at all
the possibilities, including reducing the number of athletes in each contest
and halving the number of spectators.”
Continental
governing body European Athletics said that the decision followed a meeting
between the organising committee and the FFA and “an earlier meeting between
the relevant French authorities” – including the country’s interior and sport
ministries.
“Whilst we regret
announcing the cancellation of our European Athletics Championships, it is
worth reiterating that in these unprecedented times the health and safety of
all athletics’ stakeholders including athletes, fans, officials, partners and
everyone connected with the sport is paramount,” said European Athletics’
interim president Dobromir Karamarinov.
European Athletics
added that it would discuss the “other changes to the global athletics calendar
that have been forced upon the sport” in its next videoconference on May 7-8.
The Eugene Diamond
League meeting was due to take place on June 7 with Paris six days’ later.
Their postponement means that eight events have been pushed back with no
revised dates yet announced.
“As with previous
suspensions, this decision was reached in close consultation with all relevant
parties and based on concerns over athlete safety as well as widespread travel
restrictions which make it impossible to stage the competitions as planned,”
the organisers said in a statement.
The next scheduled
Diamond League meeting is London on July 4, although the Bislett Games in Oslo –
one of the longest-standing meetings on the international calendar – will go
ahead on June 11, albeit in a different format from the Diamond League meeting
originally planned on that date.
The event will be “an
alternative athletics competition under Norwegian coronavirus regulations”,
organisers said.
Oslo will feature a
pole vault head-to-head between Armand Duplantis and 2012 Olympic champion
Renaud Lavillenie, whose world record the young Swede broke in February.
