World Athletics to work with Oregon21 on 2022 dates for world champs; NCAA D1 extends eligibility for spring sports...

Tokyo Olympic Stadium (photo courtesy Japan Sport Council)

Here's a couple of items to pass along while we're in lockdown because of COVID-19, in case you missed it:

World Athletics announced in a statement Monday that it will work with the Oregon21 Organizing Committee to arrange new dates for the 2021 World Track & Field Championships, which will now be pushed to 2022, in light of the announcement that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will take place from July 23rd to August 8, 2021.

"We support the new 2021 dates for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games announced today by the Japanese organizers and the IOC. This gives our athletes the time they need to get back into training and competition."

"Everyone needs to be flexible and compromise and to that end we are now working with the organizers of the World Athletics Championships in Oregon on new dates in 2022 for our World Athletics Championships."

World Athletics' complete statement is available here.

The NCAA Division I Council Monday voted to allow schools to provide spring-sport student-athletes an additional season of competition and an extension of their period of eligibility.

"Members also adjusted financial aid rules to allow teams to carry more members on scholarship to account for incoming recruits and student-athletes who had been in their last year of eligibility who decide to stay. In a nod to the financial uncertainty faced by higher education, the Council vote also provided schools with the flexibility to give students the opportunity to return for 2020-21 without requiring that athletics aid be provided at the same level awarded for 2019-20. This flexibility applies only to student-athletes who would have exhausted eligibility in 2019-20."

The Council also will allow schools to self-apply a one-year extension of eligibility for spring-sport student-athletes, effectively extending each student’s five-year “clock” by a year. This decision was especially important for student-athletes who had reached the end of their five-year clock in 2020 and saw their seasons end abruptly.

Note that the individual schools have the discretion to give/not give student-athletes who decide to return the same amount of financial aid they received in spring 2020.

The NCAA release is available here.

NOTE: World Athletics and the NCAA contributed to this report.