The Boston Marathon is offering refunds for the first time because of the new coronavirus pandemic.
Race organizers say anyone who was entered in the 124th edition of the race this month can still run on the rescheduled date, Sept. 14. But if they can’t make it, they can have their money back. Those who have signed up for the Boston Athletic Association 5K the Saturday before the marathon can also get a refund.
More than 30,000 runners had signed up for the world’s most prestigious 26.2-mile run, which had been scheduled for April 18. It costs $205 for Americans and $255 for international residents.
THE OTTAWA Senators say four more members of the organization tested positive for COVID-19.
The NHL team announced the update Wednesday but did not specify if the people affected were players, coaches or staff. The Senators previously had two players test positive.
The four additional people who tested positive were all on the team’s March road trip to California. The team said everyone on that trip self-isolated upon return March 13 and that all six members of the organization who got the novel coronavirus have recovered.
MLS: A player for the Philadelphia Union has tested positive for coronavirus. It is Major League Soccer’s first player case of the virus that has caused the suspension of the season.
The Union did not identify the player, but said no other club players or staff would be tested because the case fell beyond the 14-day window of possible interaction with the player.
OAKLAND A’s minor league manager Webster Garrison, who has been hospitalized and on a ventilator while battling coronavirus, is now showing marked improvement, his fiancee said. Garrison is “turning the corner” in his fight, Nikki Trudeaux said while providing updates about her fiancee, a former major leaguer who has spent the past 22 years in the A’s organization as a coach and manager.
“Web was 100% dependent on the ventilator yesterday morning, 80% this morning and now 60% tonight,” Trudeau wrote on Twitter. “His respiratory blood work came back really good, too!! He’s coming back to us y’all. … Keep praying.”
Trudeaux, who has also tested positive for the virus but is without serious issues, has been asking for nightly prayers with the hash tag “WebbyStrong” for the 54-year-old Garrison. He remains hospitalized in Louisiana, where his outlook was much worse late last week when Trudeaux tweeted, “This man, my fiancé, Webster Garrison, the love of my life, is on a ventilator in the hospital, fighting for his life, and I can’t even be at his side!”
The A’s announced last week a member of their minor league staff had tested positive for COVID-19, but didn’t identify Garrison.
ONE OF the key warm-ups for the Tour de France, the Critérium du Dauphiné cycling race, has been postponed.
The race had been scheduled for May 31-June 7 in southeastern France. Race organizer Amaury Sport Organization said it still hopes to reschedule the event for later in the year.
ASO also owns the Tour de France, which is scheduled to start on June 27 from Nice. No decision has been made on whether to postpone or reschedule the Tour.
SEAN MARKS, general manager of the Brooklyn Nets, says the four players who tested positive for the new coronavirus have completed their two weeks of isolation and are now symptom-free.
The Nets announced on March 17 that four players had tested positive, with Kevin Durant telling The Athletic he was among them. Marks said during a conference call Wednesday that all have now been cleared, along with the team’s entire traveling party. He said all are still practicing social distancing.
Brooklyn’s most recent game was March 10 in Los Angeles. All Nets players were then tested, and the team said one player showed symptoms and the other three were asymptomatic.
PREMIER LEAGUE club Bournemouth says Manager Eddie Howe has taken a voluntary pay cut during the coronavirus outbreak.
Bournemouth is the first top-flight team to announce such a measure by its coach. The team said Howe’s pay cut was “significant,” without disclosing exact figures. Key members of his backroom staff as well as club chief executive Neill Blake will also have their salaries reduced.
Bournemouth says it has also advised a number of staff across all areas of the club that they will be furloughed “to safeguard the financial stability of the club during what is such an uncertain period.”
MAJOR LEAGUE Baseball has canceled a two-game series in London between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The teams had been scheduled to play at Olympic Stadium on June 13 and 14. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred made the announcement in a memorandum sent to MLB employees. MLB said on March 19 that it had scrapped series in Mexico City and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
MLB played in Europe for the first time last June when the New York Yankees swept a pair of games from the Boston Red Sox in London.
UEFA HAS postponed the Euro 2020 playoffs for the second time because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The games were originally scheduled for March 26-31 and have now lost their June 4-9 dates. The playoffs will decide the last four places in the 24-nation lineup for the postponed European Championship.
The decision was made in a conference call with officials from the 55 UEFA member federations. UEFA says “all other UEFA competition matches, including the centralized international friendly matches, remain postponed until further notice.”
A GERMAN soccer club is raising funds amid the coronavirus pandemic by selling tickets for a fictional game.
Third-division club Uerdingen hopes to virtually sell out its 34,500-capacity Grotenburg Stadium in Krefeld with the offer of souvenir tickets for fans.
Tickets start at 5 euros ($5.46) and go up to 19.05 euros ($20.80) for VIP tickets. The club says “panic buying for friends and family is definitely allowed.”
It’s the only time that Uerdingen will sell tickets for the Grotenburg Stadium this season. Its home arena is being rebuilt, so the club has been playing home matches at the ground of nearby Fortuna Dusseldorf.
Uerdingen was one of the powerhouses of German soccer in the 1980s with a best finish of third place in the Bundesliga and a run to the semifinals of the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1986. More recently, it has dropped as low as the sixth division.
A HOCKEY team and a soccer club in Russia face being removed from their leagues after government financial support was diverted to fight the coronavirus.
The sports ministry in the far eastern region of Primorsky Krai says it sees no point in funding player contracts for another season if it’s not clear when competitions will resume. It wants the Admiral Vladivostok hockey club to drop out of the Kontinental Hockey League and the Luch Vladivostok soccer team to drop down two divisions into the amateur leagues.
The ministry says regional funding earmarked for professional sports will instead go into an anti-coronavirus fund.
Many Russian sports team rely heavily on regional governments and state-owned companies for much of their funding. Primorsky Krai is the first region to impose such drastic cuts.
All major sporting events in Russia are currently suspended.
THE OLYMPIC flame will be on display until the end of April in Japan’s northeastern prefecture of Fukushima.
Tokyo Olympic and prefecture officials held an official “handover ceremony” on Wednesday at the J-Village National Training Center in Fukushima.
The public will have limited access to view the flame, and organizers hope to limit the crowd size because of restrictions in place for the coronavirus.
The flame arrived in Japan from Greece on March 20 and the torch relay was to have started last week from Fukushima. The flame has remained in the prefecture with Wednesday’s event merely ceremonial.
The Fukushima prefecture is the region of Japan that was devastated in 2011 by an earthquake, tsunami, and the subsequent meltdown of three nuclear reactors.
Olympic officials have postponed the Tokyo Games until next year with the opening now set for July 23, 2021.
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