MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. The 2020 World Bandy Championship, which was earlier postponed indefinitely due to the global spread of the novel coronavirus, will take place in Russia’s Irkutsk in early October, the press service of the Federation of International Bandy (FIB) announced on Thursday.
The 40th edition of the Bandy World Championship was initially scheduled to be played in the Siberian city of Irkutsk between March 28 and April 5, 2020.
"The Federation of International Bandy has now decided to hold this year’s World Championship for the eight best bandy nations in the World in Irkutsk, Russia, October 5-11," according to Thursday’s statement from the FIB press service.
"The tournament was postponed this spring due to the [novel] coronavirus pandemic, but will now be played where the spring tournament would have been held - at the new Ice Palace Baikal in Irkutsk, Russia," the statement added.
Bandy was officially recognized as a winter sport competition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2001. However, bandy featured as a demonstration sport at the VI Winter Olympic Games in Norway’s Oslo in 1952 and FIB was officially registered in 1955 by four founding countries, namely Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Soviet Union.
COVID-19
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 6,622,600 people have been infected worldwide and more than 388,900 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 3,198,900 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 441,108 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 204,623 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 5,384 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.