Year in Review 2020: From Olympics to Wimbledon, a look at major sporting events that we missed this year

With the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible to conduct many big sporting events this year. Going against the norms, authorities had to either postpone the events or outrightly cancel them in 2020.

Here is a list of major sporting events that were disrupted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic:

Tokyo Olympics

Easily the biggest sporting event in the world, the Olympics were to be held this year in Tokyo. The event was set to begin on 24 July but the International Olympic Committee and the government of Japan decided to push back the event to 2021. In a historic move, the decision was announced in the month of March. It was the first time in the Olympics’ 124-year history that they had been postponed for a reason other than war.

Cricket

Men's ICC T20 World Cup 2020 was delayed by a year by the International Cricket Council in July. The event, originally scheduled to be staged in October-November in Australia, was shifted to October–November of 2021.

The postponement of the World Cup gave BCCI a bigger window to organise the Indian Premier League. The 13th edition of IPL was postponed by about six months and it had to be held outside India, in the UAE.

Football

The spread of the novel coronavirus led to the delay of the continental European Championships. After a meeting between the UEFA and 55 affiliated national football federations and representatives, it was decided that pushing the event by a year was the only feasible option.

Copa America, South America's continental tournament, also met the same fate. It is now scheduled to be played between 11 June and 11 July.

Euro 2021 Women's championship was postponed to 2022 in order to avoid a direct clash with the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics in April earlier this year.

FIFA also went on to call off the Women's U-17 and U-20 World Cups. Although originally the tournaments were postponed, the Bureau of the FIFA Council decided to cancel the events and gave the hosting rights for the 2022 editions to the countries that were due to host the 2020 editions.

Tennis

Wimbledon 2020 was cancelled for the first time since World War II. The 134th Championships will instead be staged from 28 June to 11 July in 2021.

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