its berths would therefore be given to the teams that were to represent the united states in 2020. the arena national championships were later cancelled, and the junior and mixed championships were postponed to later in the year. the 2021 canadian olympic curling trials were held in saskatchewan, whose only restrictions on sporting events by november 2021 were a proof of vaccination requirement for attendees. however, omicron variant would begin to lead to the cancellations of other events, including the continental cup for the second season in a row, as well as the olympic mixed doubles trials, most provincial playdowns for the 2022 scotties tournament of hearts, the canadian mixed doubles curling championship, u sports/curling canada university curling championships, canadian colleges athletic association curling championships, and canadian wheelchair curling championship. the scotties was held behind closed doors for the second season in a row due to ontario restrictions, with a limited audience of tournament volunteers and local junior curlers from the thunder bay area invited to attend the playoff rounds. cycling 2020 marc hirschi wearing a face mask is interviewed after the 2nd stage of the 2020 tour de france. the journalist is maintaining a physical distance between him and the cyclist using a pole with the microphone attached to the end. the 2020 uae tour was scheduled to run until 29 february, but was abandoned following stage five after two support staff tested positive for coronavirus. of the following nineteen 2020 uci world tour races scheduled to take place up to 31 may, only omloop het nieuwsblad and paris–nice, which also had the final day of racing removed, took place at the intended time, some with the stated hope of taking place at a later date. the postponed races in this block include the 2020 giro d'italia and four of the five annual monuments, and many lower category races were also cancelled or postponed. also races of the 2020 uci women's world tour were cancelled or postponed. on 15 march, uci requested to suspend all uci-sanctioned events in affected territories until 3 april, and the qualification for the tokyo 2020 olympic games and paralympic games to stop retroactively as of 3 march. on 18 march, the suspension of events were extended at least until the end of april. on 1 april, the suspension was extended until 1 june, and on 15 april, it was extended until 1 july for the international races, and until 1 august for the uci world tour races. on 14 april, the annual tour de france, originally scheduled for 27 june – 19 july, was postponed due to the country's strict measures with the coronavirus as the government extended a ban on mass gatherings until july. the following day, aso and uci rescheduled the race for 29 august to 20 september, and it was ultimately held at that time. a virtual race was conducted every weekend with bikers and teams racing against each other from their homes. a revised calendar for both the men and the women was issued on 5 may, which was updated on 12 june. on 15 july, the first uci-sanctioned race after the suspension, dookoła mazowsza was commenced. the first uci world tour race after the suspension was strade bianche on 1 august, which was moved from its original schedule in march. on 23 july, the gp de québec and the gp de montréal races scheduled for september in quebec city and montreal were cancelled. on 9 october paris-roubaix, originally scheduled for 25 october, was added to the listed of cancelled races. 2021 for the 2021 uci world tour, the tour's three events in australia in january–february (the tour down under, great ocean road race, and herald sun tour), and also hamburg cyclassics (august in germany), grand prix cycliste de québec and grand prix cycliste de montréal (september in canada), tour of guangxi (october in china) were cancelled. paris–roubaix, originally scheduled in april, was postponed to october. many uci proseries and continental circuit races were cancelled, some races such as tour of qinghai lake (usually class 2.hc) and tour of japan (2.1) downgraded themselves to the class 2.2 and held with domestic teams only during the international travel restrictions. 2022 for the 2022 uci world tour, the tour's australian events were once again cancelled due to local restrictions; although the possibility of holding the great ocean road race later in the season was suggested, it was ultimately cancelled in full due to a lack of available dates. the tour down under was replaced in both years by a "festival of cycling" headlined by races in australia's national road series. bmx race days of the 2020 uci bmx supercross world cup were cancelled including 2 to 3 may in papendal, the netherlands. the 2020 uci bmx world championships, scheduled to take place in houston, united states on 26–31 may, are postponed. other the annual cape epic endurance race scheduled from 15 to 22 march was cancelled. darts the professional darts corporation's european tour was impacted by the coronavirus; with the 2020 european darts grand prix, the 2020 european darts open and the 2020 german darts grand prix all being postponed following restrictions on gatherings implemented by federal governments in baden-württemberg, north rhine-westphalia and bavaria, respectively. the tournaments were officially cancelled on 29 may, with the pdc announcing the european tour would downsize from the initial plan of thirteen events to five, including one from before the restrictions came in. the two 2020 premier league darts rounds to be held in rotterdam at the end of march were postponed to september following restrictions on gatherings in the netherlands; and the round to be held in newcastle a week earlier was subsequently postponed to october. the next five rounds, in belfast, sheffield, manchester, berlin and birmingham were also postponed to later dates, with the sheffield dates now serving as the play-off round. all protour events from 16 march to the end of june were postponed. on 15 july it was announced that the 2020 premier league darts rounds which were to be held in rotterdam, birmingham, belfast, leeds and berlin would be cancelled, and instead be played at the marshall arena in milton keynes. as well, the play-offs were shifted back to london. on 17 august the rounds in manchester, glasgow, newcastle and sheffield were cancelled, and instead would also be played at milton keynes. finally on 30 september the play-offs were moved to the ricoh arena in coventry. the 2020 world matchplay was also relocated to milton keynes and held behind closed doors, rather than the usual venue of blackpool. the 2020 champions league of darts was cancelled, and the pdc world cup of darts was postponed from june to november and moved from hamburg, germany originally to graz, austria, before being moved again to salzburg. the planned first event on the 2020 world series of darts, the us darts masters, was canceled for 2020, and the 2020 nordic darts masters was originally postponed from june to october before being cancelled on 14 august. the three australian events the pdc's north american affiliate, the championship darts corporation, cancelled the first weekend of its season in ontario, and the new zealand affiliate dartplayers tour was ended for 2019/20 following the cancellation of events in queenstown. the 2021 pdc world darts championship was initially able to host 1,000 spectators under english "tier 2" restrictions. however, the event was moved behind closed doors after the government announced that london would be moved to tier 3 restrictions that prohibited indoor gatherings. esports main article: impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the video game industry § esports impact of the pandemic on esports have primarily affected events and leagues that host competitions in-person (typically to reduce latency between players that can impact games played over the internet, and to allow for an in-person audience in a similar fashion to traditional sporting events), which led to cancellations and postponements, and competitions being held behind closed doors—either in the traditional sense, or with competition being conducted entirely over the internet rather than in-person, with streaming broadcasts (as are typical for esports). sportcal suggested that the esports industry had an opportunity to attract mainstream sports fans as a "viable alternative" to traditional sporting events. roundhill investments ceo will hershey predicted that games that are straightforward for casual viewers to understand (such as sports games) could see particular interest among this new audience. crossover with traditional sports the suspension of sports competitions allowed professional athletes to increase their involvement in video game streaming as a means to engage with fans. esports organisations also invited professional athletes to compete in specific competitions (often alongside, or in competition with professional players); faze clan organized a charity call of duty: warzone pro-am entitled "fight 2 fund" in support of covid-19-related charities, where professional players were partnered with celebrity participants (such as ben simmons, chad johnson, and juju smith-schuster), and several sim racing competitions similarly invited professional race drivers. some sports teams took advantage of sports games in a similar manner, such as the phoenix suns holding nba 2k20 streams with guest players, between the teams the suns were scheduled to play that night if the nba season had continued. this culminated with a game being broadcast by the team's radio commentators on team flagship kmvp-fm. the nfl canceled its 2021 pro bowl game and replaced it with a madden nfl 21 event, featuring nfl players and other celebrities controlling the pro bowl roster (voted on by fans as normal) in a "virtual" pro bowl game. sports broadcasters also took advantage of esports as a form of replacement programming, with leagues partnering to hold televised tournaments in sports games featuring their players, or in some cases (such as espn2 simulcasting the 2020 league of legends championship series) acquiring professional esports events to air on television. the indycar series and nascar announced partnerships with sim racing platform iracing to hold online invitational events featuring series regulars. the inaugural enascar iracing pro invitational series event drew a television audience of 903,000 on fox sports 1—making it the most-watched esports broadcast on u.s. linear television since a 2016 mortal kombat x tournament aired by the cw. this record was surpassed the following week with a texas motor speedway race — also aired by the main fox network — which attracted 1.339 million viewers. after being well-received, a second, 10-event enascar iracing series was announced for 2021, mainly to fulfill television inventory with its media partners fox and nbc (as nascar has continued its covid-19 protocol of not holding practice or qualifying sessions at events). the series runs on selected wednesday nights during the nascar season, primarily featuring existing tracks with a change to their surface or vehicle configuration. fencing on 3 march 2020, the fédération internationale d'escrime (fie) issued its first bulletin on covid-19 precautions. on 10 march fie strongly recommended that all participants in its competitions (athletes and other members of national delegations) fill and carry with them a questionnaire about their health status. on 12 march a fie circular reported the postponement of six world cup or grand prix competitions and the world junior/cadet championship. since the world cup and grand prix events were part of the qualifications for the 2020 tokyo olympics, the circular warned on the need to postpone the zonal qualifications tournament for the olympics. no news was given on other events, and their possible postponement or cancellation. fie reported on its web site the postponement of the olympic games, but hasn't yet given any information on the world fencing championships, which is supposed to happen in non-olympic years, so there is a 2021 championship planned (assigned to cairo), but not a 2020 championship. individual countries had different decisions. for example, on 4 april the federazione italiana scherma announced it was suspending all competitions until 31 august. field hockey many field hockey leagues in europe have been suspended or curtailed, including in spain, england, germany, and the netherlands. the 2019–20 euro hockey league final 8 and 2020 euro hockey league women seasons were suspended on 12 march. the 2020 men's eurohockey club trophy i, 2020 men's eurohockey club trophy ii, 2020 boys' eurohockey youth championships, and 2020 girls' eurohockey youth championships were cancelled. in asia, the 2020 men's hockey junior asia cup,