BWF MEDIA RELEASE | BADMINTON OCEANIA
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) will implement an adjusted tournament calendar for the HSBC BWF World Tour in 2020.
Given the ongoing COVID-19 situation, our main concern is to ensure the health and safety of all personnel participating in planned international tournaments.
We are confident in creating a safe environment around all HSBC BWF World Tour tournaments, however, the main challenge with the existing tournament calendar is our capacity to move participants between different territories where different entry and safety restrictions apply.
Therefore, in light of the exceptional circumstances we find ourselves in, an adjusted tournament calendar has been developed to replace the present HSBC BWF World Tour tournament locations and dates.
The adjusted tournament calendar includes a number of cancellations, which unfortunately includes the Barfoot & Thompson New Zealand Badminton Open 2020 (a HSBC BWF World Tour Super 300 event).
The tournament was the first of Olympic qualification events in 2019. Originally, this year’s edition was postponed and rescheduled to a later date in the year in the hope that measures would have been implemented to allow events to take place in the COVID-19 era. However, New Zealand continues to extend it’s border closures and Auckland (host city of the tournament) has recently come out of a second lockdown.
Meanwhile, the TOTAL BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Aarhus, Denmark will remain part of the international tournament calendar and will proceed on the planned dates of 3-11 October 2020.
Thus, following the completion of the TOTAL BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Weeks 40 and 41 of the tournament calendar, the HSBC BWF World Tour will resume with a two-week European leg in Odense, Denmark to be staged across Weeks 42 and 43.
Both of these tournaments – DANISA Denmark Open I and Denmark Open II – will be Super 750 events.
There will then be a two-week transition time to move the tour and all participants to Asia safely – factoring in the necessary quarantine period – for two Super 1000 tournaments in Weeks 46 and 47, and culminating with the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals in Week 48.
The locations of the three Asian leg tournaments are yet to be announced.
All remaining HSBC BWF World Tour tournaments on the calendar will no longer take place at the dates and locations originally listed.
BWF Tournament Calendar 2020 (Grade 1 & Grade 2)
BWF is working with different Member Associations to explore the feasibility of staging the Asian leg tournaments and a final announcement is expected soon to allow all participants to plan their
travel arrangements.
BWF has shared its Safety Protocols and Operating Procedures document outlining the safe return to international badminton to all Member Associations, and will make this document publicly available in a separate announcement tomorrow.
Any breach of these guidelines can result in accreditations being revoked and participants not permitted to enter the venue.
BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund said: “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible to implement the revised international tournament calendar for the HSBC BWF World Tour as originally envisaged.
“Managing travel logistics between different territories where different entry and safety restrictions apply has been the biggest challenge. Therefore, an adjusted tournament calendar was developed.
“Our main concern has always been the health and safety of all participants and we have created a BWF Safety Protocols and Operating Procedures document to guide us in this process.
“We look forward to the return of international badminton and we thank all parties and participants involved in the planning process.”
Tournaments completed in 2020 will accumulate world ranking points, although such points will only be included with the unfreezing of the World Rankings.
The exact model for the unfreezing of the World Rankings, and how subsequent rankings are structured and valued, will be released shortly.
The updated BWF Tournament Calendar 2020 is now available online.
