As of February 26, the coronavirus outbreak has killed over 2500 people, with over 80,000 confirmed cases across 42 countries. Even though most cases have been detected in China and South Korea, the spread of the virus across other continents has resulted in the cancellation or rescheduling of numerous sporting events as well as athletes withdrawing from notable tournaments.
How will this affect Indian athletes in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics? Which events involving Indian participants have been cancelled or postponed? We look at key events across sport.
(We will update this story regularly with latest news on sporting events involving Indian athletes being cancelled or postponed because of the coronavirus.)
Badminton
Latest update - India's HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma and Sourabh Verma have all pulled out of the All England Open badminton championships beginning on March 11 due to fears over the coronavirus. Doubles pairs Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, as well Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy have also pulled out of the tournament.
The German Open, scheduled to be held from March 3-8 has been called off. Additionally, the Vietnam International Challenge in Hanoi has been postponed from March 24-29 to June 2-7. The delay is significant as ranking points from the tournament will no longer contribute to Tokyo 2020 qualification as the event falls outside the qualification window, which ends on April 26.
The BWF World Ranking Lists as of 28 April 2020 will be used to allocate 34 individuals for singles and 16 pairs for doubles quota places per gender to the highest-ranked athletes. Nations can enter a maximum of two players each in the men's and women's singles, if both are ranked in the world's top 16 by the cutoff date; otherwise, one quota place until the roster of 34 players has been completed.
In men's singles, B Sai Praneeth and Kidambi Srikanth are in contention for qualification, while PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal vie for spots in the women's singles draw. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are in good position to qualify for the men's doubles. The event's postponement reduces the number of opportunities players have to make the cut for Tokyo.
The Lingshui China Masters, scheduled from February 25-March 1, in Hainan province, which has seen 168 confirmed cases so far, has also been postponed until further notice.
The Swiss Open and the India Open are successive tournaments in Malaysia and Singapore at the end of March. Given the two nations' proximity to China and the fact that Malaysia has 22 confirmed coronavirus cases and Singapore has 91 already, it might be worth keeping an eye out on the status of these tournaments specifically.
The Polish Open International Challenge which was scheduled to be held in Krakow between March 26-29 has been postponed. The new dates are still being earmarked, but the tournament will no longer fall within the Olympic qualification period.
Golf
The Royal's Cup 2020, scheduled for March 12-15 in Thailand, has been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Asian Tour said on March 5. "The Asian Tour and the event promoter... have decided to postpone the Royal's Cup on the advice of the health authorities of Thailand," the Asian Tour said in a statement. "Up until this week, the promoter, sponsors and the Tour were committed to delivering the event as scheduled. However the current situation is now beyond our control."
Basketball
The 3x3 basketball Olympic qualifiers scheduled to be held in Bengaluru between March 18-22 have been postponed.This is the first major tournament in India to be postponed due to the outbreak.
Six Olympic spots (three each from men's and women's) were to be up for grabs which would then have the top two teams from each pool qualifying for the knockout stages of the competition.
More details here.
Race walking
The Asian 20km Race Walk Championships scheduled for March 15 in Nomi, Japan have been cancelled due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, it was announced on March 2. Thirteen Indians were to take part in the event, with Tokyo Olympics-bound Bhawana Jat leading the country's challenge. The Asian Athletics Association (AAA) took the decision to cancel the championship after a request from the Japan federation.
"In view of COVID-19, the Government of Japan has proposed for higher alert," AAA president Dahlan Al Hamad said in a statement. "All major events in the country have been cancelled or delayed. The Japan Association of Athletics Federation has requested to cancel the championships."
Table tennis
India's highest-ranked player G Sathiyan's pre-Olympic training plans have been thrown off gear. The world body, ITTF, had proposed to hold a camp in Japan a week ahead of the Japan Open (April 21-26) which Sathiyan was also hoping to be part of, but now the tournament itself appears to be in doubt.
"We don't know if the Japan Open will take place according to schedule. I was planning to train in Hong Kong or Korea in May, even that seems iffy now given the current scenario," says Sathiyan. Last year, the world No 30 ranked Indian had hired the services of Chinese player Shen Yaohuan, who is sought after by Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei national teams as sparring partner, getting him to his home base Chennai for an eight-day session and the idea was to repeat the experiment this year too ahead of the Olympics.
"We were in talks with him for a second stint together after the Asian Qualifiers, where I'm hoping to crack the Olympic qualification. We were also exploring options among North Korean or other Chinese sparring partners but now it's tough to go ahead with anything. The World Team Championship has also been postponed. Everything is suddenly in doubt, tournaments, training plans and our calendar is quite scrambled now."
Wrestling
The Olympic qualifying tournament to be held between March 27 - 29 at Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic has been cancelled, the Kyrgyz ministry of Youth, Physical Culture and Sports has announced.
Athletics
The cancellation of the World Indoor Championships in China (Nanjing, March 13-15) has landed a body blow to Dutee Chand's Olympic qualification aspirations. It was preceded by the calling off of the Asian Indoor Championships (Hangzhou, February 12-13), which much like the World meet was focal to Dutee's plans of building on her speed to shave 0.07s off her 11.22s personal best. Both events have been cancelled summarily with no alternate venues proposed. The qualifying mark for the 100m women's event is set at 11.15, a steep ask for Dutee. The plan, penciled in by her coach N Ramesh, was for Dutee to compete in 60m sprints at both competitions to bulk up on her explosive start.
"Dutee's strength lies in the first 30m so the idea was to split the distance and focus on what she does best. But with both the competitions, which we've been planning for over the latter half of last year cancelled, suddenly our plans have been thrown off," Ramesh told ESPN. Dutee is likely to participate at the Indian Grand Prix legs in Sangrur, Patiala and New Delhi in March followed by the Federation Cup in April.
Boxing
The International Olympic Committee announced Jordan as hosts of the boxing qualifiers for the Asia-Oceania region after an event in Wuhan, where the outbreak began, was cancelled. It will now take place in Amman from March 3 to 11.
Weightlifting
The Asian Weightlifting Championships have been relocated from Kazakhstan to neighbouring Uzbekistan. The competition, scheduled to be held during April 16-25, will be hosted in Tashkent.
Shooting
Six countries, including China, have withdrawn from the Shooting World Cup to be held in New Delhi from March 15-26. The New Delhi World Cup isn't an Olympic qualifier, however, with India securing the Olympic quotas on offer at the event last year. The designated continental championships this year, until April 30, are the only remaining qualifier events for the Olympics.
The New Delhi World Cup is unlikely to see the participation of three other countries - South Korea, Italy and Iran after the federations of those three countries were informed of the need to undergo strict quarantine rules laid down by the government of India in order to control the spread of the novel coronavirus.
ESPN understands that the Indian contingent, which had plans to train in South Korea pre-Games, will not be doing so because of the outbreak in the country.
India also pulled out of the ISSF shotgun World Cup to be held between March 4 and 13 in Cyprus, citing the threat posed by the novel coronavirus "The coronavirus threat is the only reason we are pulling out and it has been done on the advice of central agencies," an NRAI official said. "Given the situation it was the right decision as we can't put our shooters, support staff and accompanying officials at risk of contacting the virus," he added. While there is no Olympic quota on offer at the Shooting World Cup, the event had offered ranking points that could have played a role in Olympic qualification.
Squash
The Asian Team Championship scheduled in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from March 25-29 as well as the Asian Junior Individual Championship thereafter in Quingdao, China June 29 to July 3, have been postponed.