Women's Curling World Championships cancelled for second year running amidst ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

Geneva: The world championship in women’s curling were cancelled for the second straight year on Monday, disrupting qualification for the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The World Curling governing body said local health officials in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, would not support the 19-28 March event “due to the current pandemic situation and concerns around the spread of new variants.” The 2020 women’s worlds in Canada were also cancelled. “We will be evaluating all the options available to us in order to complete the Olympic women’s team qualification process,” World Curling President Kate Caithness said. The 2021 worlds could be rescheduled or replaced with an Olympic qualification event. The men’s worlds is still set to be played from 2-11 April in Calgary, Canada. Curling follows men’s ice hockey and road cycling with world championships cancelled in Switzerland since the coronavirus pandemic was declared last March.