The International Skating Union (ISU) announced on Tuesday the cancellation of the world junior figure skating championships, which was slated for March 1-7 next year in northeast China city Harbin.
The move followed the sport's world governing body's decision to cancel the entire 2020-21 junior Grand Prix series in July as the coronavirus pandemic and consequential travel and entry restrictions led to some countries declining to send athletes to participate.
Some of the biggest missing stars would be the 2020 medalists Kamila Valieva from Russia, her compatriot Daria Usacheva, and American Alysa Liu.
Youth Olympic Games champion You Young of South Korea and Kagiyama Yuma of Japan will be skating the senior event at NHK Trophy this coming weekend.
With the cancellation, the world junior championships became the latest figure skating event to fall victim to the COVID-19, which has already wreaked havoc to ISU figure skating's past and ongoing season.
Alysa Liu of the United States, performs during an exhibition gala at the the World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, March 8, 2020. /CFP
The 2020 World Championships to conclude the last season, originally scheduled for March in Montreal was among the first major ISU event to have been canceled. After considering the pandemic situation to move ahead with the new season for the senior-level, the ISU cancelled two out of its six Grand Prix events, in Canada and France.
According to the ISU, they continue to search for a possible relocation and new date for the Grand Prix Final originally scheduled to take place in Beijing this December as the Olympic test event but was later canceled.
"A decision will be taken as soon as possible," said the ISU.
(Cover image: Kamila Valieva from Russia, during an exhibition gala at the ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships 2020 in Tallinn Estonia, March 8, 2020. /CFP)