More than a month out, the 2020 African Swimming Championships have been postponed to a later date, according to an email sent today.
The 2020 CANA African Swimming Championships were set to take place in Durban, South African from April 17-22. The African Championships are held every two years and hosted by Africa’s continential swimming federation CANA.
An email sent today by Swimming South Africa to all CANA federations and bureau members announced that the 2020 African Championships would be postponed, with no reschedule date yet set.
The e-mail notes that Swimming South Africa has been “in daily deliberations with CANA” regarding the ongoing spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus. The virus has caused a number of event cancellations across the globe. Italy canceled its Olympic Trials, which were to take place next week. Japan has canceled its Paralympic Swimming Trials, and is considering closing its Olympic selection meet to spectators. China rescheduled its Olympic Trials, set for late March and early April.
Meanwhile the Olympics themselves, scheduled for late July and early August in Tokyo, Japan, remain on track, with IOC President Thomas Bach encouraging athletes to continue preparing “with great confidence.”
You can read more of our coverage of the 2019 novel coronavirus here.
We’ve reached out to both Swimming South Africa and CANA for more information on the rescheduling, but have not yet received responses.
Now this is what I might consider to be overprotection, because there haven’t really been issues in Africa, but the meets that are being shut down in the United States are not. The US had already have the outbreak. If you look at the almost exponential increase in numbers of patients in China and how much resources that the government and people put together to help Wuhan (which is the city that had the majority of patients) is unbelievably tremendous, and seeing things happen is heartbreaking. If you are a kid trying to get into college by swimming, figure something out (video time trial, club intrasquad meet…). If you are a parent, you will never want you and your kid… Read more »
I am not sure that all parts of Africa has the opportunity for sufficient tracing, and that they know it. I swam in Wuhan 2018. Very dense city.