The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:
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The Euroleague basketball season has been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic and no championship will be awarded.
The league says it considered and rejected various plans for continuing the season, including proposals from many cities to hold remaining games. It instead opted to focus on the 2020-21 season.
The league adds that “for reasons of sporting integrity, all competition system modifications including a reduced number of teams were discarded.”
The Euroleague has 18 teams across 10 European nations. The different lockdown and border restrictions in those countries made it difficult to continue games.
The season was suspended March 12. Turkish club Anadolu Efes Istanbul was leading with a 24-4 regular season record.
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Chinese technology company Tencent has donated 150,000 face masks and 10,000 pairs of protective goggles to Paris Saint-Germain’s foundation.
The foundation will dispatch them to organizations and charities in need of equipment to help fight the spread of the coronavirus.
The shipment was delivered last week and is being stored at PSG’s Parc des Princes. The stadium has been operating as a logistics support base in the Greater Paris region.
Sabrina Delannoy, the deputy director of the Paris Saint-Germain Foundation, said on Monday that the donation “will enable our many partner charities to continue working in safe conditions and to pass on this equipment in turn to the people who need it most.”
PSG and Tencent sealed a partnership during the French club’s Tour in China last year.
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The chief executive of West Indies’ cricket team says a plan is in place to fly a 25-man squad to England around June 8 ahead of a three-test series starting a month later in bio-secure stadiums with no spectators.
Johnny Grave says he has been in discussions with the England and Wales Cricket Board for the past six weeks and that Cricket West Indies is expecting a formal offer to go ahead with the tour in the coming days.
Grave says in an interview with espncricinfo.com the players would take privately sourced tests for COVID-19 three or four days before the departure date. They would then convene at a base in Antigua and fly out in one aircraft on the same day, before being transported to their quarantine and training venue where they would spend about three weeks.
He adds that the current plan is for the test matches to start July 8, July 16 and July 24. The tour was due to start on June 4 but no professional cricket can be played in England before July 1 because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Grave says there is still some apprehension among players and support staff about leaving their families for seven weeks, travelling to Britain and playing in bio-secure venues, but that no player has said formally he does not want to tour.
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The Italian Winter Sports Federation (FISI) would like to postpone next year’s Alpine skiing world championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo until March 2022.
Italian Olympic Committee president Giovanni Malagò revealed the plans during an interview with RAI state TV on Sunday night.
Malagò says “this is the best solution” in order to avoid the championships being canceled or shortened after the fallout in Italy from the coronavirus pandemic.
Malagò says FISI would officially send the request to the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) board on Monday.
Cortina was already forced to cancel the World Cup finals in March this year due to the advancing virus.
Moving the worlds to March 2022 would put the event one month after the 2022 Beijing Olympics and likely force FIS to cancel that season’s finals in Méribel and Courchevel, France.
The Cortina worlds are currently scheduled for Feb. 7-21, 2021.
Worlds are usually held every other winter, in odd years.
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