IFSC President Marco Scolaris led a teleconference of the IFSC Executive Board earlier this week ©Getty Images

The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) Executive Board held a teleconference meeting this week, with the main theme the rescheduling of competitions postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic forced the IFSC to postpone two more continental Championships in the past week - the African Championships in South Africa and the Oceania Championships in Australia.

These added to two more continental Championships already postponed - the European Championships in Russia and the Asian Championships in China.

New dates have only so far been found for the European Championships - now taking place from June 15 to 22 in Moscow in Russia.

 At the teleconference, the IFSC said it would try to reschedule the continental Championships before June 30, setting a deadline of May 15 for confirmation that competitions can be held in each continent.

A contingency plan was also drawn up for any continental Championship that could not be rearranged.

This is that an updated qualification system would be used to ensure that the continental quota places are awarded according to the standings in last year's IFSC Climbing World Championships, held in Hachioji in Japan.

"The most important thing for the federation is the health and safety of its athletes, officials, organisers and staff members," said IFSC President Marco Scolaris.

"At the same time, the IFSC is fully committed to restarting its calendar as soon as possible, avoiding any cancellations and rescheduling all the competitions at a later date. 

"The IFSC Sport Department, the National Federations, the 2020 event organisers and the IFSC Athletes Commission are already working on the framework of the new calendar."

During the teleconference, Scolaris also provided an update on a conference call earlier in the week with IOC President Thomas Bach, along with other summer Olympic federations and members of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations.

Scolaris reported that Bach used the conference call to reaffirm his commitment to holding the Olympic Games in Tokyo from July 24 as scheduled.

Scolaris also used the teleconference to report that a spending review would be implemented to help the IFSC smoothly manage activities in the upcoming months and to negate any impact on the cash flow of the federation caused by the postponement of events.

Finally, Scolaris reported he would hold a further teleconference with representatives of all the Member Federations in the coming days.