Table tennis world team c'ships delayed to early 2021

Seoul : The Table tennis world team championships have been delayed to early next year amid lingering concern about the COVID-19 outbreak across the world, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) announced on Saturday.

The ITTF executive committee met on Friday to discuss the latest situation for international table tennis amid the COVID-19 pandemic, reports Xinhua news agency.

After deliberations with key stakeholders, the executive committee reached the outcome that the Hana Bank 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships in Busan will be staged between Feb. 28 and March 7, 2021.

The world team championships were originally scheduled to be held in the South Korean southeastern port city of Busan from March 22-29, but it was postponed to June 21-28 and once again to Sept. 27-Oct. 4 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The executive committee noted that due to a decreasing probability of international events being staged according to the original plan in 2020, the ITTF will therefore attempt to stage "bubble" or regionally based events during the remainder of the 2020 calendar.

The ITTF executive committee said it will meet again on Aug. 28 to provide further updates on all upcoming decisions in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.