BWF cancels another event due to Coronavirus; Vietnam International Challenge to take place in June

After the cancellation of the BWF World Tour event China Open, that was to take place this month, due to Coronavirus, the governing body of international badminton has been forced to postpone another scheduled tournament. This time, it’s the tier-2 event Vietnam International Challenge that has been pushed down in the calendar.

This tournament was scheduled to take place next month from March 24-29 in Hanoi. However, Vietnam Sports Administration advised BWF to postpone it as there is no certainty of the virus having been fully contained by that time or the authorities being in a position to fully secure the tournament’s participants.

“BWF accepts that all relevant health, safety and logistical risks were considered by Vietnam Badminton Federation (VBF), Vietnam Sports Administration, and Badminton Asia Confederation (BAC) in making the decision and that the welfare of players, their entourage, fans and officials at the tournament was the main priority.”

Like China Open, this tournament too was supposed to be a qualifying event for the Olympics coming up later in the year. But with it postponed to June, that will no longer be the case.

Luckily, the World Tour, at the moment, is mainly taking place in Europe, away from the center of the virus’ outbreak in Wuhan province of China. However, in its statement, BWF revealed that, at the moment, they haven’t yet planned any more changes to the World Tour calendar.

“The BWF is continuing to monitor all official updates on Covid-19 and is mindful that HSBC BWF World Tour and other BWF-sanctioned tournaments may be affected, but there are no concrete plans or decisions at this point to change the status of any other events.”

The next event in the World Tour calendar is the German Open Super 300 tournament which will begin on March 3.