MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. The 2020 IFSC (International Federation of Sport Climbing) European Championship in Moscow, which was earlier rescheduled several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be held in late November, the IFSC press service announced in a statement on Friday.
"During yesterday’s teleconference meeting, the IFSC Executive Board decided to move the IFSC European Championships in Moscow (Russia) to the period from November 20 to 29, in order to further minimize the health and logistic risks connected to the pandemic," the statement from the IFSC reads.
The 2020 IFSC European Climbing Championship was initially scheduled to be held in the Russian capital of Moscow on March 20-27, but was rescheduled in April for June 15-22 over the threat of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The Climbing Federation of Russia (CFR) announced later in April that the tournament was likely to be moved for late November.
This year’s European Climbing Championship had the status of the qualifications tournament for the 2020 Olympics in Japan.
The IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the IPC (the International Paralympic Committee) announced on March 24 a decision to postpone for one year the tournaments in Japan due to the continuous COVID-19 spread. 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.
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 6,748,500 people have been infected worldwide and more than 394,300 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 3,277,300 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 449,834 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 212,680 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 5,528 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.