Covid-19 virus claims another badminton event

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced today that the Hanoi International Challenge would be postponed until June, marking the second event to be removed entirely from the Olympic qualifying period due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

In a press release today, the BWF confirmed that the Vietnam Badminton Federation (VBF), Vietnam Sports Administration, and Badminton Asia Confederation (BAC) had made the decision jointly to postpone the Hanoi International Challenge to June 2nd to 7th.  The tournament was originally to have been held from March 24th to 29th in the Vietnamese capital but due to concerns over the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, continuing as planned was deemed infeasible.

The situation in Vietnam was shaping up to be similar to that in Manila earlier this month, where athletes from China and Hong Kong were barred from competing due to a travel ban by the Philippine government.  While Vietnam has not banned foreign travellers completely, it has cancelled all flights to Korea and to mainland China and recently, travellers arriving from Korea’s Covid-19 hotspot Daegu were quarantined on arrival in the country.

Vietnam is one of a few regions in Asia that has seen a 100% recovery rate from the virus, as all 16 patients confirmed to have contracted Covid-19 have recovered.  India, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Tibet have all managed to keep their number of infections in single digits, with all patients in those regions also having since recovered, while China’s Qinghai Province has also had 18 confirmed cases and all 18 have recovered.

The only other international ranking tournament to have been postponed so far is the Lingshui China Masters.  Originally scheduled to start today, the Super 100 event has been postponed to an as yet unconfirmed future date.  However, mass withdrawals by Chinese athletes also recently hit the Austrian Open and Spain Masters, in addition to the upcoming Dutch and German Junior International events.

Events like the Hanoi International Challenge are a key opportunity for many players to earn valuable ranking points toward qualifying for the Olympic Games.  The only Vietnamese players who are currently chasing ranking points for Tokyo are its two women’s singles players.  Nguyen Thuy Linh (pictured) is vying for position mainly with compatriot Vu Thi Trang and moved ahead today after reaching the Austrian Open final on Saturday.

The BAC has yet to announce any decision regarding the fate of the Badminton Asia Championships, slated to be held in Wuhan in April.  With over 40,000 Hubei residents still suffering from illness related to the Covid-19 virus and Wuhan still in lockdown, it is almost certainly a question of when, rather than if, the event will be either postponed, cancelled, or moved to a new host city.

Click here to read the complete press release from the BWF website