Diamond League track meet in Shanghai cancelled due to coronavirus

The 2020 Diamond League track meet in Shanghai has been cancelled in the wake of the suspension of all international sporting event in the Chinese city due to coronavirus pandemic.

The Wanda Diamond League track meet was slated to take place in the Chinese city on September 19.

"Following the decision taken by the National Administration of Sports to suspend all international sporting events until next year, we are sorry to announce that the 2020 Shanghai Diamond League will not go ahead as planned on 19th September," the Diamond League official website said.

The Shanghai Diamond League meeting will now make a return next year, thus taking its traditional place as one of the early-season events in the league calendar.

It is to be noted that the 2020 Diamond League will not be a structured series of events which leads to a final event in usual case.

As a result, the athletes will not earn any league points this season and there will be no single 24-discipline final in Zurich as planned. 

Currently, six competitive meetings are slated to take place between August 14 and October 17. 

Earlier, the Diamond League track meet in England was also cancelled due to the novel virus.

The Gateshead meet, whic was initially scheduled to take place on August 16 and moved to September 12 before being cancelled, had become fifth of the 15 meets in the series to be cancelled.