Coronavirus: BWF welcomes Tokyo Olympics postponement, may freeze rankings

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) welcomed the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the badminton world governing body said on Wednesday.

"Today, we stand in solidarity with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in welcoming the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games," the BWF said in a statement.

"BWF fully supports the decision made yesterday by IOC President Thomas Bach, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe, and the Tokyo Organizing Committee (TOCOG) to 'reschedule the Games to a date beyond 2020 but no later than summer 2021'," the statement said.

"As we have learnt in recent months, balancing the many necessary considerations for the whole of sport has been a complex exercise, so we are supportive of how difficult this decision would have been for the IOC and TOCOG," it added.

BWF called for patience as it plans to work with the IOC, IPC and the TOCOG, "to gain a better understanding of what the next 12 months will look like."

BWF said it would review any impacts on the Olympic and Paralympic qualification system to ensure a fair solution is found to qualify players for the postponed Games.

BWF is also looking at the possibility of freezing world rankings until international tournaments start, it said, according to Xinhua news.

"However, we are still working on the technical solution to ensure the freezing and eventual un-freezing of world rankings works fairly for all players and we will announce this shortly," said BWF.

The IOC and the TOCOG announced in a joint statement on Tuesday that the Games have been postponed to no later than the summer of 2021.

Earlier, BWF has suspended tournaments in the coming months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.