IFSC HOLDS TELECONFERENCE WITH BOARD, OFFICIALS, STAFF AND MEMBER FEDERATIONS, SUPPORTS IOC DECISION
The International Federation of Sport Climbing held a teleconference today at 1:00 pm (UTC+1:00), welcoming many of its National Federations, along with officials and members of the IFSC Executive Board and IFSC Staff.
The following nations or regions were represented in the audience: Australia; Austria; Belgium; Brazil; Canada; the Czech Republic; France; Great Britain; Germany; Hong Kong, China; Hungary; Indonesia; Iran; Israel; Italy; Japan; Latvia; Lithuania; Nepal; Netherlands; Norway; New Zealand; the People's Republic of China; Poland; Portugal; the Republic of Korea; Russian Federation; Slovenia; Spain; Switzerland; Ukraine; the United States of America and Venezuela. In total, 69 participants attended the meeting.
The IFSC President Marco Scolaris shared a message of hope and unity:
“I am only the President of an International Sport Federation and I cannot set rules. But I can give you all a recommendation, a strong recommendation, which is also an appeal: stay at home. Rocks and walls won’t move, the virus does. Stay at home. This is the only way to contain the pandemic, to protect yourselves and to protect others. We are going through this nightmare together, we’ll get out of it together.”
The meeting took place while the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee were releasing a joint statement, making the postponement of the Olympic Games to “not later than the summer 2021” official.
The IFSC President Marco Scolaris commented:
“Day after day, it became clear that the postponement of the Games was the only way to guarantee a fair and collective participation to Tokyo 2020. The IFSC welcomes and supports the decision taken by the IOC, the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the Japanese Government and all the authorities involved. The outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus forced all of us to take unprecedented measures to contain the pandemic, ultimately this one. Right now, all our efforts have to be focused on the end of this pandemic. There will be time for competing, there will be time for sports. Now the world is ill, but one day we will celebrate its recovery with our world cups and championships. We will climb the world again!”
