The 2021 World Para Athletics Championships in Kobe, originally scheduled for September next year, will be postponed until 2022, reports have suggested.
The World Para Athletics Championships will be moved to accommodate the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, report The Japan Times.
The one-year delay of the 2020 Summer Games was announced on March 24 in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The Olympics, which were originally scheduled to open on July 24, will now take place between July 23 and Aug. 8, 2021, followed by the Paralympics from Aug. 24 to Sept. 5.
The Kobe event, which had been slated for Sept. 17 to 26, will now coincide with the athletics world championships in Eugene, Oregon, which have also been pushed back by a year to July 2022. The new timetable will also avoid a clash with the 2022 Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, China, in October.
Several other international sports events are likely to be rescheduled next year as a result of the Tokyo Games postponement.
Some 1,300 athletes from 100 countries and regions are expected to take part when Kobe becomes the first Japanese city to host the para championships.
