The tremors of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) are now felt by United World Wrestling (UWW) too. The headache to organise the Olympic Qualifiers have given the world governing body multiple sleepless nights. UWW is clueless about the way forward and has decided to take help from the International Olympic Council (IOC) to find a solution to the problem. The two world bodies will meet today (Monday) to discuss the issue and try to find a cure to it.
“I have a problem with the whole wrestling world right now. I have a meeting with the International Olympic Committee officials on Monday (today), and immediately after the meeting, I will announce the way forward,” UWW President Nenad Lalovic was quoted by the official platform of Iran Wrestling Federation.
UWW on Friday had announced the deferment of the Bishkek-bound Asian Olympic Qualifiers after the Kyrgyzstan government denied to host it in the wake of the epidemic. The qualification tournament was originally slated to be held in Xi’an, China from March 27 to 29 but was relocated to Kyrgyzstan due to Coronavirus widespread.
The epidemic has forced many countries to cancel its national training camps too, Iran being the latest. The Asian country had cancelled the national camp indefinitely.
The widespread of Coronavirus has now posed questions on the fate of the European Qualifiers as well. The qualifiers in Europe are slated from March 19 to 22 at Budapest, Hungary. The menace of Coronavirus is increasing in Europe by the day. Most of the European countries are getting affected by it and as a precautionary measure have imposed travel and other necessary restrictions on the fellow countries. In middle of this crisis, it is but certain that the European Qualifiers also may get impacted by the Covid 19.
The unprecedented crisis has led UWW to call on IOC mandarins and consult them on the way forward. The entire global wrestling fraternity will keep a close eye on this meeting as fate of many Olympic hopefuls is dependent on these continental qualifiers.
