The Diamond League’s season-opening event in Doha (Qatar) has been postponed until June amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
‘BBC SPORT’ stated that the meeting, the first of 15 stops on the Diamond League circuit this season, was set to be held at the Qatar Sports Club on May 8th but will instead take place at the Khalifa International Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar, on June 19th “should conditions allow”.
The Diamond League is an annual series of elite track and field athletic competitions comprising 15 invitational athletics meetings. The series sits in the top tier of the World Athletics one-day meet competitions.
Monaco-based the World Athletics (WA), formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and the International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF is the international governing body for the sport of athletics covering track and field, cross country running, road running, race walking, mountain running, and ultra running.
The 13,000-capacity Qatar Sports Club is a sports club based in Doha, Qatar. It is best known for its football team which competes in the Qatar Stars League. The club was founded in 1959 with the merger of the two Qatari football clubs – A l-Oruba and Al-Nasour.
The Qatar Stars League (QSL), known as the Doha Bank Stars League for sponsorship reasons, is the top level football league in Qatar. Contested by 12 teams it operates on a system of promotion and relegation.
The 45,857-capacity Khalifa International Stadium is a multipurpose stadium located in Al Rayyan, Qatar, around nine kilometers West from the center of Doha. Its ground comprises a running track and a grass pitch.
‘BBC SPORT’ further stated that the above comes after conflict was sparked across the Middle East when the United States and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran in February.
This year’s Diamond League series will now begin on May 16th in Keqiao, China.
The decision to also change the venue of the Doha meeting was taken because of Qatar’s scorching summer temperatures which can exceed 400C in June.
The Khalifa International Stadium, which hosted the World Athletics Championships in 2019, is temperature regulated to allow for safe competition.
The World Athletics Championships, known as the IAAF World Championships in Athletics until 2019, are a biennial athletics competition organized by the World Athletics, formerly the International Association of Athletics Federations. Alongside the Olympic Games the Championships represents the highest level of senior international outdoor athletics competition for track and field athletics globally including marathon running and race walking.
The new date of the Doha event will fall between the Oslo (Norway, June 10th) and Paris (France, June 28th) Diamond League meetings making it the eighth leg of this year’s series.
The Diamond League organizers said they would “continue to monitor developments in the Middle East in the coming weeks”.
The organizers added in a statement sent out on April 8th, “The series and meeting organizers remain committed to delivering the highest level of safe and secure competition for the athletes, the media and the spectators.”
Several high-profile sporting events have been affected by the crisis in the Middle East including the cancellation of the Formula 1 Grand Prix weekends in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in April.
London (UK)-based Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for the open-wheel, single-seater formula racing cars run by the Formula One Group and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the world’s premier forms of motorsport since its inaugural running in 1950 and is often considered to be the pinnacle of motorsport.
London (UK)-based the Formula One Group is a group of companies responsible for the promotion of the FIA’s Formula One World Championship and the exercising of the sport’s commercial rights.
Paris (France)-based the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) is an international organization with two primary functions surrounding use of the automobile. Its Mobility Division advocates the interests of the motoring organizations, the automotive industry and the motor car users in the fields of road safety and traffic circulation. The Sport Division is a governing body for many international motorsport championships and disciplines including Formula One.
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